


Truth and Consequences

by slantedsunlight



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU from last 20 minutes of TFA, Author is smug, Balance in the force, Ben Solo backstory, Dream Sex, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), GUESS WHAT THEY'RE NOT RELATED, I'm trash and I don't care, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren Backstory, Mind Meld, References to The Last Jedi, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, all aboard this trash ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:02:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5517998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slantedsunlight/pseuds/slantedsunlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thin cot barely telegraphed movement, but Ren felt her through the Force all the same, as she stretched out next to him. Her energy flickered, and the light from the hallway went out, sending them into deeper shadow.</p><p> </p><p>When Rey fights back against the invasion of her mind, she pushes too far and sees deep into Kylo Ren's past. Her new understanding of him complicates things when they stand on opposite sides of the greatest conflict in the galaxy, but would a chance encounter requiring them to work together tip the scales one way or the other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> At first I just wanted to write a little character motivation backstory to flesh out who Kylo Ren is and why he works so well with Rey. Then the fic itself took over and suddenly I had this long BEGINNING of a story that demands to be continued. So that's the plan. I hope you enjoy the ride!
> 
> This sticks as closely to canon as possible, (except for the much more in-depth mind-meld), but veers wildly into AU after the events of EP VII. 
> 
> The Explicit tag is for later chapters, because I know this trash ship will lead me into smutty waters. Stay tuned.

 

 

Citizens of Jakku had to be tough, and Rey was no exception, for all that she was a slip of a girl. Dodging danger but fighting when she had to, scavenging had taught her enough tricks to hold her own. In fact, she hadn't really felt  _afraid_ in years, until Kylo Ren trapped her in the forest of Takodana.

She was a nimble thing, used to escaping through squeezed spaces and quick steps, but in the middle of this peaceful, airy forest she was truly cornered, feet leaden and arm muscles burning at her side, where her clever hand dragged at the blaster Han had given her, _come on, up, shoot_ , to no avail. The rush of anger she had been burning on evaporated. And then he was there, the towering figure in black, voice a metallic hum right next to her, the discordant rumble of stripped-wire static underlying his words.

With fear spiking across her screaming nerves, she couldn’t tell if he was angry or impressed when he said, “You’ve seen the map.” There wasn’t time to work out how he knew this, before his dark-gloved hand waved toward her from the corner of her eye- to hit her, she thought at first, but there was no blow, only instant darkness as her legs and mind went slack.

 

She came to with an awareness of the cold- not like the bitter winds of Jakku at night, but a dull chill that sunk into her skin even before waking. The metal gripping her limbs was an echo of her last memories, a different trap, so as she opened her eyes, she was hardly surprised to see the same masked figure across from her, sitting, like a hunter awaiting prey.

Yet she was unharmed, and that realization told her all she needed to know. Kylo Ren needed her intel, needed the piece of the map BB-8 had shown her. This was her interrogation, not her execution.

Well, not yet, anyway.

She stiffened, bracing herself for pain, or trickery, or more of the compelling force she had felt in the forest. She thought that last one might be the most worrying, but then again, she’d never been tortured before. A learning experience then.

Rey decided in the span of their long moment staring at one another, green eyes to unreadable black visor, that she wouldn’t go down without a fight, and she for sure as kark wouldn’t tell him anything. But the stoic darkness of that mask was void of weakness, nothing she could leverage, and she shivered, wondering what kind of creature was beneath it.

Well, she didn’t grow up bartering junk parts for nothing. Feeling brave and a touch nihilistic, she taunted him, hoping to goad him into revealing his face. It couldn’t possibly be more menacing than that helmet.

Still, she didn’t honestly expect him to let go of an intimidation device, such a tactical debility. So when he reached up and unlatched it as if to prove a point, she was nearly startled enough to lose ahold of her defiance.

He looked barely older than she was: a handsome, if morose, man of her own kind. He didn’t look like the monster she’d accused him of being, and Kylo Ren could see it in her face, calling her on her obvious assumptions.

 

A frozen moment hung between them then. He stood looking at her, remarkably normal hazel eyes cautious and intractable, edged with anger, but not directed at her, she didn’t think. Rey’s insolence folded into confusion; she felt a very odd exchange happening between them, a break in the tension. It was almost conversational, like they were actors in a holo, stopping between scenes to discuss the story.

But then he drew himself up, was back to being the villain. He demanded she tell him about the map. He threatened to take it, to take whatever he wanted from her, and she was both repulsed and angered by the implications. It was a thinly veiled remark meant to scare her, but she’d known how to ward off all manner of unwanted advances from a young age, and she didn't fear this boy, so clearly pretending to be all-powerful and scary. His intensity was unnerving, but her anger was back now, blooming until it was all she could feel.

When Kylo lifted his hand, she knew it was coming, grit her teeth and shoved up against the intrusion of his mind prying her open. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt, raw like an exposed nerve, more painful than sun-sickness but sharper, deeper. He was in her memories, uninvited, ripping up pieces of her past she barely recalled herself and examining them.

“You don’t sleep well,” he said, his tone intimate and smug, almost whispered into her ear. “When you do, you dream of an ocean, a green island surrounded by water.” Rey saw the images as if he was holding them in front of her, looking with her at this fragment of - home, or a dream of the future - whatever it was. It was still _hers_.

It wasn’t fair, that he could do this to her, touch and take and tear what little she had. Without knowing how he was doing it, she couldn't even strategize, had no idea how to fight back, and in the cloying vise of distress, she simply closed her eyes and focused before throwing all her strength against him.

It worked; too well, in fact. One moment she was desperately pushing him out of her head and the next, like the momentum of pushing someone out of a doorway, she herself was across the threshold and in _his_ mind. It felt like stepping into a dust storm. He was a confusing swirl of emotion- _so much_ emotion, so much pain and conflict there- and then, still carried forward with the strength of her push, she tumbled through his memories.

_________________________________________________________________

 

Images, sounds, and vivid feelings floated up to Rey, engulfing her. There was a light over her head- _Kylo’s_ head- and it was blinking soft, glowy blue light, so pretty. It floated in a glass bauble, just out of reach, and behind it he could see his mother smiling. Her hand was pulling at the light through the air, spinning it and dipping it without touch. He wanted to touch the light, but it was too high, even when he stood up in his crib. Out of frustration he began to cry, reaching up with both hands, and he _wanted_ it.  

And then his mother said his name, startled, “ _Ben!”,_ but he wasn’t looking at her, because the glass sphere with the light inside was in his hands, and up close it’s even more beautiful. He heard his mother’s soft laughter and then darkness swallowed the memory, and Rey was thrust into another.

 

Light shined brighter suddenly, and his father was carrying him, close and smelling of leather, across a breezy airfield, heading for the big grey ship ahead. Rey was startled to recognize the man carrying the child: a much younger Han Solo. But how could that be possible?

The scene continued without answering Rey’s questions. Chewie was there too, waiting for them and making happy sounds that Ben- _Ben Solo?_ , Rey wondered- could not yet understand, except for the word “little” and his name. His father set him down in the worn pilot seat, and he could just reach the colorful controls to his left, but his feet didn’t touch the floor.

His father ruffled his hair, and then began to point to each button and lever in the cockpit. Ben dutifully recited the name of every one, only stumbling over a few. Chewie purred a loud, joyous sound, but he was looking out through the windshield at a cloaked figure, who waved at them. Uncle Luke was home!

Rey felt another surge of her own emotions then- a sense of shock as she recognized the name of the figure from legend. She was seeing _Luke Skywalker_ in Kylo Ren’s memories... Luke Skywalker was his _uncle_. Then how-?

 

Before she could follow the thought further, the next swirl of memory consumed her. This one was loud, the zip and ping of remotes blasting tiny bolts of light at each youngling in a room of ten or so, all around the age of seven or eight. She- _He_ held a small dagger-sized saber, lavender in color. It hummed softly as he swished it to block another red shot of light from the floating orb.

He missed, overshooting the swing, and a stinging pain lit up his shoulder, not enough to scar, but enough to hurt and leave an obvious char mark on his white tunic. He fretted that Uncle Luke would see, and tears of shame filled his eyes.

A tap on his shoulder had him turn to look behind him, swiping at his wet eyes. A slip of a girl stood in her own white tunic, offering him a cloth, and he frowned to think she had seen his mistake, was taking pity on him. But she smiled at him, a face full of freckles and white teeth, and then she pushed at his shoulders, spinning him in place to tie the cloth over his eyes, knotting it behind his head. Rey could only see grey now, the same as the child, Kylo- no, _Ben_ \- could see.

“If you don’t try to see with your eyes, you can find them better,” the padawan girl said into his ear, a conspiratorial whisper.

Ben knew the older children trained like this, with blinder helmets on, but he wasn’t sure how. He began to ask her, but she squeezed his shoulder and told him, “Reach out with your mind, you can feel them. Trust me.”

He squared his shoulders and heard the whine of the remote charging up another bolt, but this time, he felt the odd sensation of awareness beyond his own helping him. Rey was astounded to feel it too, as if she was also tapping into the myth-turned-truth of the mysterious Force. The remote bounced ahead of him through the air, but he could tell where it went, and before he could register the zap of the shot, his arms had moved to block it, almost without his knowledge.

Ripping the cloth off his eyes, he turned to grin at the girl, but it was his Uncle Luke who stood behind him now. The man looked thoughtfully down at him, and Ben wasn’t sure if he was in trouble or about to be praised.

“Let’s go for a walk, Ben,” Luke said instead.

 

Rey felt the pain and tightness that was the next sensation in Ben’s chest, but she couldn’t see anything- his face was pressed hard into his pillow as he tried to calm himself, the echo of his uncle’s words during their walk an hour ago blazing panic through him.

“Our family is very strong with the Force, Ben, and I see it in you, the same as it is with your mother and myself. The same as it was with your Grandfather.”

Ben didn’t remember ever having a grandfather. Careful not to trip over the steep stone steps they climbed, he had asked why he had never heard stories about a grandfather, the way he’d heard so much about his War Hero parents, the stories surrounding Uncle Luke himself. Adventure and bravery, mystic power and victory over the bad guys; someday he, too, would explore the galaxy and maybe even save it.

Rey felt a pang in her own chest then, for this child so full of optimism. She could not- would not comprehend that it was the same man who held her captive.

Uncle Luke had stopped walking then, at the top of the stairs, sitting down on a cold stone bench facing the lake below. He beckoned Ben to sit with him.

“Tell me what you know about the Force, Ben,” he had said.

Confused by the change in subject, Ben nevertheless dutifully recited his lessons.

“The Force is the energy of all living things, and the energy that binds the galaxy together. We use the force for protection, persuasion…..um... wisdom, and to move matter beyond our own strength.”

“Very good, Ben. And what do you know of the Light and Dark sides of the Force?”

Ben perked up, he knew these stories well. “The Jedi use the Light side, which is good and just, and the Sith use the Dark side, because they’re evil.”

Uncle Luke had not looked as pleased as Ben had expected him to appear. The man’s grey hood had slid back to rest on his shoulders, and his short-cropped sandy-blond hair was shot through with silver. He had looked tired, or worried maybe. Ben felt his confusion return. Watching them, Rey agreed with that sentiment.

“Uncle Luke?” Ben had asked.

“You’re old enough now to learn a little more about the two sides, Ben, and the role they have played in our family history. It is more complicated than good vs evil, and it’s important to understand it, so you can make the right choice if and when you are tempted.”

 

Back in his bed, angry tears soaked his pillow the same way he tried to soak up everything Uncle Luke had told him. The villain of the galaxy, Darth Vader, was his grandfather? It couldn’t be true. But then, he remembered every bad thing he’d ever done, stolen bantha custards and joyrides on “borrowed” speeder bikes around the lake.The time he crushed a beautiful jeweled beetle out of curiosity, and felt it’s tiny life snuffed out through the Force. Was he destined to be Dark, like his grandfather?

Distantly, as if hearing the sound from another room, Rey heard her own throat make a choked, pained sound.

 

She was not prepared for a sudden inversion of emotions then, but without warning she felt a thrill of pure adrenaline flood her, as the memory resolved anew, and the ground rushed up toward the ship Ben was piloting. His feet reached the floor now, although he still wore the white robes of a padawan.

He whooped through stomach-lifting g-force as he pulled out of the dive, swinging the nose of the little silver and blue skiff up toward the red setting moon, and then into a more level flight. Behind him, his father laughed, leaned forward to clap him on the shoulder.  
  
“I always knew you were just like your old man,” Han said. Ben’s pride swelled, and then he laughed as Han added, “Don’t tell your mother.”

Slowly, Rey felt the smile fade from Ben’s face as the truth of it dug into him. He really was just like his father; flying came so easily to him, but so did rule-breaking, and stubbornness. He _should_ be more like his mother, or his uncle, full of patience and strong with the Force. His father wasn’t force-sensitive at all. A chill hit Ben between his shoulderblades to think of a life without that power guiding him.

He frowned, and began to turn the skiff back toward home. Flying wouldn’t help him grow into a strong Jedi. His father couldn’t help, either.

Han asked if he was all right, but Ben pretended not to hear the question.

 

As if it were smoke, the vision she saw dissipated into another, dark, but quiet, peaceful. Ben was sitting cross-legged on a rock by the lake, and he could feel the presence of his uncle on another rock several paces away. It was just before dawn, the lake waters quiet, a gentle buzz of insects surrounding them. His legs were much longer this time, his hands too big for his arms yet, marking him as twelve or thirteen years of age. He could feel the scratchy fabric of his new grey tunic rubbing at the wrong spots, the humidity drawing sweat down his spine, sticky and annoying.

“Ben,” Luke warned. “Focus.”

He exhaled a frustrated breath and tried again to pull his mind to a point, to fade attention from all surrounding sounds, and look within. The small pink frogs breeding their progeny at the lake shore receded with the first trills of morning birdsong and the glint of light that flickered on the edge of hills across the city. _There_. He had finally reached the door to a quiet place inside himself, and Uncle Luke was there too, his voice no longer a sound but a presence in Ben’s mind, guiding, _Call a fish up from the lake, gentle, that’s good._

Once more, Rey felt the harmony and power of something outside herself, and yet connected to her, both in the vision and outside of it. It was personal and omniscient at the same time; as familiar as breathing, but like a muscle she had never flexed before.

Without opening his eyes, the young Ben felt the first rays of dawn catch on emerald scales and the pull of the water against lacey fins, over gills, giving life. He sensed the creature’s surprise and alarm at being moved, but with a nudge from his mind, he lulled it to calm, working to keep it so, as he brought the animal to the surface of the water and lifted it out. It was a fat fish, but Ben had lifted 100 times its weight in his training. This exercise was not about strength, but finesse, something his uncle was always quick to criticize. His abilities with the Force were plenty strong, he knew, but he hadn’t yet moved beyond the level of a blunted tool, to become a master of delicacy.

Perhaps it was his self-doubt leaking through, but suddenly Ben felt his control tremble, and from within his trance, some sound reached his awareness- a girl’s laughter, or maybe just a bird?  Instantly, he began to lose his Force hold. Desperate not to fail again, he pushed his strength back toward the fish, tightening his hold, but too much, he unbalances, and his Force grip has crushed it.

 _No!_ Rey thought, but it was too late. The fish was crushed bone and lifeless, dripping flesh before it hit the water.

Luke was standing beside him before Ben had time to blink his eyes open, and the Jedi Master was angry.

“You are too careless, Ben. You lack focus. A Jedi who cannot control himself is vulnerable, open to Darker suggestion.”

Ben bowed his head, the weight of disapproval heavy on his shoulders. These were old wounds, Rey could feel, for all that he was still a young boy. His father was flying his own ship by his age, without the help of any Force-sensitivity, and his grandfather had won pod races even younger than that, such was his skill, but for all that Ben was already a fine pilot himself, that didn’t matter. He struggled with the most important focus of his life, his Jedi training.

Ben flushed then, to realize he had just compared himself to his grandfather, and grew angrier to think that his Jedi abilities were not as strong as one who was weak enough to turn to the Dark side. Fed up with his inadequacies, he launched himself off the rock and bolted back toward the Jedi training center, barefoot and heedless of his uncle’s calls.

Rey expected the scene to jump forward once more, perhaps to a grown Ben, but instead she tracked with Ben’s run up the stairs to the third floor of the building, where the young girl from before sat reading in a reclined chair. She must have been a little older than Rey had supposed, as she looked perhaps fifteen here, older surely than Ben in this moment. Still slight but more grown and very pretty. Ben felt stupid and oafish in front of her, all limbs he had yet to grow into, but the girl’s smile was welcoming and she set down the tome she was reading as he entered.

“Liya,” Ben said in relief.

That’s all Rey saw of the scene, but the echo of comfort and something warmer trailed after.

 

Swept forward, a short burst of sounds and images hit Rey:

Luke’s voice first, _A Jedi must let go of all emotion. Clear your mind._

A broken bowl, soup splattered on the kitchen floor and Ben’s cheeks burning in embarrassment, in his lack of control. His parents’ worried faces across the table from him. He stood and left, no longer belonging there.

Next, a chorus of padawan voices in unison, a line of the Jedi mantra: _A Jedi seeks serenity, not passion._

Liya’s smile as she caught him sneaking a Corellian apple onto her plate. Her favorite.

Rey felt it with him then, a flicker of something in his parents’ house, the last time he ever visited. Something called for attention, a wall that felt different than the others.

Ben, taller but not yet filled into a man, pressed a hand to a hidden panel, and was met with a soft click as it opened.

A wooden box lay inside, locked.

 _Turn away from chaos,_ said a memory of Luke’s voice.

Ben’s foreboding rose like a wave, even as he lifted his fingers and closed his eyes, feeling through the Force for the latch mechanism.

His mother next, _Don’t be afraid, Ben._

Another click and the lid was open. Ben was fascinated to see the melted ruins of a helmet inside. He had also never been more afraid.

He didn’t know what made him take it, only that he both feared and was deeply curious about it. It went under his bed in the training center.

 

Rey lost the threads of time then, only catching glimpses of nightmares where Ben looked into mirrors and saw the mask on his own face, felt an incredible power flow through him. A voice whispered at the back of his mind, promising power. His shame upon waking from these dreams held him back from telling his uncle, or even his parents. He did not want them to know that he enjoyed the confidence and control he had, in those twisted fantasies.

Ben began to avoid sleep entirely. Instead, he tried to meditate more and more in an effort to gain control, frequently with the girl, Liya. They sat on the roof or by the lake and talked to each other, mind to mind. She could sense his fear, and she offered strength, a glimpse into her own fears. He was not alone.

 

Then, without warning or transition, Rey was drowned by a startling image of Liya, sprawled across the floor of the training room, badly burned and cut, and there was _so much red_ on the floor. Rey was overwhelmed with feelings, her shock and Ben’s, and his grief, his guilt.

It was an accident, _it was an accident,_  he repeated, shocked and feeling completely, abruptly cut off from the Force.

He had been training with his saber and blinding helmet against a remote, and in a moment of distraction, it had zapped him. He hadn’t been zapped since he was a youngling, but this day he had been so _tired_ , another batch of nightmares chasing him to the training room, where he had hoped to exercise his fear and anger, to regain peace. Yet his weary mind wasn’t focused enough, he was weak, as evidenced by the zap mark on his tunic. In that moment, he had grown angrier than ever, coming at the remote with arm outstretched, catching it in a Force hold and slamming it violently into the wall.

Only, it was the wall right by the door Liya was just entering, sensing his turmoil in the Force, coming to help him.

The remote exploded in a hail of laser blasts and shrapnel flying directly into her face, and he felt her pain echoed in the Force even as the shock of what he had done stripped him of his powers entirely. He could not feel the Force at all, after that.

Liya was dead.

He had killed her, his best friend. His....

His weakness had led to her destruction.

And all he could see in his mind's eye were the horrified faces of his family, his fellow Jedi apprentices, when they found out what he had done. He couldn't bear that.

 

Rey could feel tears on her cheeks, but the memories kept coming. A new scene opened before her, and in it, a broken young man sat at a bar on a desert planet- Tatooine, maybe? Not Jakku, she could tell.

Ben, feeling sick over his deeds, his destroyed life, the loss of his friend, and not a little alcohol, let his head slump to meet the cold sticky surface of the stone bar. He had not been allowed alcohol as a Jedi apprentice, but now it felt suitable: the bite of it chiding, the burn in his throat echoing his shame, and blessedly, the dulling of everything as he drank more and more. It matched his feelings of numbness, his loss of the Force.

Next to him, he felt someone move and sit. The weight of their eyes on him was bothersome. He wanted to be left alone with his misery.

Frustratingly, Rey was skipped past this interaction, and the next images were of a foreign face, withered, mangled, and old, but the power emanating off of it- him- was staggering.

 

“Hello, Ben Solo,” the figure rasped. “I’ve brought you here to save you from yourself.”

“Who are you?” Ben stuttered, realizing he was still a little drunk. “You can’t save me.” He let his head fall into his hands, rubbing at his bleary eyes.

“You’ll save yourself, boy. Simply with the power of the Force,” came the reply.

“I can’t feel the Force anymore,” Ben said, defeated. He was so tired.

“You merely look in the wrong direction. I can sense it in you, your anger, your frustration with your weakness, your desire to have control. I can teach you how to tap into the power you seek. Your childish dabbles with the Light are nothing, as are the traitors to the Force who taught them to you.” The voice grew louder, angrier as he spoke.

Ben felt himself grow colder, and more alert.  He considered the being in front of him, and a sudden clarity hit.

“You mean the Dark side, don’t you?” He tightened his jaw, righteous against the suggestion. “I won’t use it. I’m a Jedi!”

“Do you really think you are destined to be a Jedi Master, young Solo? You, who dreams of his grandfather’s power, who struggles to fit inside the tiny cage that your uncle would lock you in?" The figure leaned forward, voice deeper, seductive. "I have seen your ambition, I know your fears. The Jedi call emotion a weakness, a crutch, but what kind of person does that leave? You might as well be a battle droid, as a Jedi.”

There was fault in this logic, Ben knew, but he couldn’t quite extract it. It sounded so reasonable, nothing like the demanding mantra of the Jedi, who asked for so much. He had never been good at following their rules.

Rey sensed the trap, screamed silently at Ben, _No, don’t listen_ , but her voice made no sound. She could not reach into the past to warn this damaged boy that he stood on a precipice, the edge between Light and Dark.

“I,” Ben swallowed, fear and sadness and anger thick in his throat. “I can’t. I...They would hate me, my family, my friends.”

“They already do,” the voice purrs, so certain, so full of power.

It must have been true, Ben thought. Of course they hated him, a murderer. Hadn’t he always failed to fit in, to follow the rules? What he wouldn’t give to stop failing at everything.

The image of the dark room went blurry, faded away.

 

A soft glow once more signaled a glimpse into a new memory. One last scene unfolded before Rey, and in it was a grown man. The same man who held her captive now.

Hazel eyes void of any happiness stared back at him from the mirror in his quarters. He did not look so very different from the Jedi apprentice he had once been, but Rey felt where his focus pointed now: he had only one aim, to seek power, to become a figure of legend. The name Ben Solo, he had left behind along with a broken past, shattered dreams. Kylo Ren would be his name now, and he would gain the respect and fear he deserved. He would use the Force, opened to him again through his new training with the Knights of Ren, through passion and strength. He would forget everything else.

Except, he couldn’t _entirely_ forget. No matter how hard he tried, the faces of his parents, his uncle and especially of Liya followed him, new nightmares to fit his new life. In his dreams they called out to him, offered forgiveness, only to turn angry. They would trap him, powerless, or cast him into a dark hole, where he couldn’t breath.

If not for that one wound in his chest, that guilt and grief he couldn’t shake, he would ascend the levels of the Force. His weakness, ever the same, held him back from true power. Snoke, his new teacher, was right. If only they were gone, he could become a great Lord of the Force, like his grandfather before him.

“Let me not be tempted back to the Light,” he whispered aloud to himself. His eyes caught on the melted mask he kept by his bed, his reminder of the long path he had yet to complete on his way to matching Lord Vader’s legacy. Even if he wanted it, the way back was closed to him now. He had no choice but to go forward, and fulfill a darker destiny.

He shoved aside another whisper in the back of his mind that he would never be strong enough.

 

 


	2. Sparks and Sides

 

“You...You’re afraid.”

Rey couldn’t help it, the words spilled out of her the moment she was back to staring into the rattled, affronted eyes of the man before her.

“Afraid you’ll _never be as strong as Darth Vader_.”

She might as well have slapped him, Ren recoiled so quickly. This simple girl, a nobody from Jakku, and she had overthrown him. She had stolen memories never meant to be revisited, much less shared with another. His past was not her’s to scavenge.

Whirling in outrage, he took the only action that left him with an upper-hand. Muttering, “We’ll try again later,” he left her cuffed to the table in the cold, empty room. At least he could remind her that he was free to leave, while she was not. He set a guard to watch her and headed for the main control deck of the Starkiller. He and “the zealot”, as he thought of Hux, were due to report to their leader.

Stalking down the hall, Kylo Ren couldn’t seem to settle on what he was most riled over- the girl’s careless theft of all his secrets, or her power, her moment of superior strength against him. It rankled, to be bested by some backwater-planet imp with zero training. But Snoke had taught him to see opportunities within problems, and Ren excelled at it, livid or not. He tilted his head, considering the image of her in his mind, shaken and apprehensive. If untrained she could win against him in a match of Force, what a weapon she might be honed into, if only he could turn her to the Dark side- to _his_ side. He did not examine closely the feeling such an idea offered, choosing to acknowledge the appeal of it as satisfaction. Of course it would be an advantage to have his own apprentice, an ally he could control.

His master was less than pleased to hear of Ren’s decision to take the girl and leave behind the droid. Hux was no help there, as usual, blaming him. Anything to make Kylo Ren look weak. But Ren was confident in his choice; he would get the map from the girl’s memories, and they would find Skywalker. He just needed more time to work on her. Snoke seemed to be measuring him from above.

“She has resisted you?” Snoke asked.

“Yes...She’s just an untrained scavenger with Force-sensitivity, but she’s strong. Stronger than she knows. We might have other uses for her, but I will get the map from her one way or another, Supreme Leader.”

“No. You will bring her to me,” Snoke intoned, command brooking no argument.

 

Perhaps Ren should have counted on the girl weaseling her way out of his grasp. She may be yet untrained, but she had just experienced some of his own Jedi training in memory form- she practically had a crash course in using the Force. She was also quite strong in her own right, but he had not suspected quite this level of talent. His anger flared to think of going back to his master empty-handed, and what Snoke would say, now that she had bested him twice.

The table Rey had been confined to stood empty in front of Ren, mocking him. Drawing his saber, he funneled his rage and embarrassment into violence, slashing the metal, the synthetics, and even the lighting to pieces.

He would not underestimate this girl again.

Walking back from the interrogation chamber and ignoring the scurry of Stormtroopers eager to get out of his way, Ren was surprised to find himself fighting a wry smile under his helmet. This girl from Jakku was turning out to be a formidable opponent, a challenge the likes of which he had not found in a long time. It would be a considerable victory, if he could ensnare her.

Wherever she had escaped to, he knew he would see her again- it was only a matter of time. Even if she could flee the planet now, he felt things in the Force between them, an insight of crossed-paths. Moreover, her energy was bright, without restraint, and it was an easy thing to see her as she was: the type to dive head-first into danger, if it meant doing the right thing. And he was someone very, very dangerous.

 

Mid-escape from the First Order base, Rey felt a bit like an Uthuthma illusionist, the way she was able to feel the approach of stormtroopers from around corners, and even more amazing, her sudden ability to command any of them to turn around and walk away from her. She felt the Force in her voice and in the air around her. It was like tapping into a network, plotting the points of life energy on a tangible map.

So focused was she on the remarkably similar outputs from each stormtrooper, that she entirely missed the sparks of life turning the corner, nearly opening fire on them before she recognized her friends. It felt wonderful to _have_ friends, she thought fleetingly, embracing Finn. She hadn’t expected to see him again after their last conversation, arguing over fight or flight in Maz’s bar.

And there were Han and Chewie, looking entirely too at home amid danger and sabotage. Han was brusque, ushering them to save the happy reunions for later, but he smiled at her, warmth in his eyes, and Rey felt a poignant stab in her chest. She knew those eyes in a different face now, and suddenly she could see the glimpse of pain beneath. It felt like a punch in the ribs to recognize the same look from the eyes of his son, to realize they were equally bereaved. She wondered if Kylo Ren even knew it himself.

Following the three down another angular grey corridor, Rey listened as Finn filled her in on the plan, explaining what they’d accomplished so far with Captain Phasma’s unwilling help. Rey made a mental note to ask Finn later what had caused such a remarkable turnabout from the scared, stubborn young man she had argued with earlier that day. Without a hint of hesitation, Finn was now leading her up the ladder to the reactor core shaft of the starkiller, while Han and Chewie worked to place the bombs inside, below.

They were reaching the top finally, when Rey heard the sound of voices from within. Worried for Han and Chewie, she grit her teeth and vaulted herself up the last few rungs, catching hold of the metal railing on the platform to gaze down. She couldn’t see Chewie among the lower shadows, but the light from the charging starkiller ray poured into the reactor shaft, illuminating a thin maintenance bridge spanning the hollow structure. On it, Rey’s sharp gaze focused, spotting Han locked in a strained half-embrace with Kylo Ren- his son.

 

Ren had lost all sense of humor by the time he reached the reactor core.

He had felt the familiar flicker in the Force of Han Solo, and a venomous anger had bloomed at the base of his skull.  Anger that he had failed Snoke twice in one day, anger that his abilities were not yet as strong as he needed them to be, anger that Han had come once more to hinder his goals, to hold him back. He could not allow it. Today he would finally confront his own weakness, embodied in this man.

“Ben,” Han called out from behind him. Ren turned to walk toward the center of the bridge, and watched as the other man approached, unarmed.

“Han Solo. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.” Ren enjoyed how menacing the voice mod of his mask made him sound.

As if he knew this, Han said, “Take off that mask. You don’t need it.”

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?” Ren felt a touch of genuine curiosity to know what Han expected.

“The face of my son,” Han replied, with trademark certainty. 

It made no difference now, Ren supposed. He lifted the helmet off once more, and was face to face with his father for the first time in years.

Han Solo looked old, this close up. Far older than his son remembered. It surprised Ren, who could recall such energy and spirit from the man before he left. Now there was deep weariness in Han’s eyes, but also hope, and love too. Ren felt something deep within him give just a little. An ache for lost chances.

“Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him," Ren said, voice flat and hard, but something was twisting in his chest, something unknown.

Han took another step toward him. "That's what Snoke wants you to believe, but it's not true. My son is alive."

"No," Ren said, the feeling rising- panic? recklessness? Something frenetic and huge, though he tried to fight it. "The Supreme Leader is wise," he protested, but the praise sounded false even to his hears.

Han was steady as a rock, unshakable. "Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you." The tide inside Kylo Ren rose higher. "You know it's true," Han said, softer, and he _did know._

"It's too late," he choked out. 

"No, it's not," Han said, and it sounded like his _Dad_ , when he used to teach Ren ship controls with the utmost patience. "Leave here with me. Come home. We miss you."

 

What if he hadn’t been born with midichlorians surging through his blood, some small part of him wondered. Would he have become a pilot and Resistance fighter, a charming rogue like Han, loved by his family? Would he be someone important...or even just someone good?

He took a step forward, searching his father’s face, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. Only, he had lost his hold of anger for a moment, and in its absence, he was filled with homesickness. He could picture his father smiling down at him, aboard the _Falcon_ , on their way home. Ren closed his eyes, the calming idea within him tasting sweet.

“I'm being torn apart," he felt himself say. "I want to be free of this pain.” His eyes were wet, vision blurred. He felt on the edge of something immense. “I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?”  When he looked down, his hand gripped the hilt of his saber, offering it up. Han reached for it.

“Yes, anything,” his father said quietly.

Quite suddenly, the calm dissipated. A bitterness rose in Ren’s throat then, to see Han Solo reaching for both the weapon and the new life he had made for himself. Snoke had told him, time and again, that his attachment to his family weakened him. Sentiment was a luxury for peaceful times, but a chink in his armor now. He had left behind everything, escaped to build a new life, start over, but here was Han, trying again to push his son to be something he was not. Ren’s anger crescendoed. He could not turn back, could no longer be the weak link in a family of legends. He had to overcome his weakness. He had to _rid_ himself of Han’s influence, to take up his grandfather’s mantel.

 

Gripping the saber between them, he flicked on the blade.

In a small eternity, the stricken Han reached up to touch his face. There was forgiveness beyond the pain in his father’s eyes that he had not asked for, and had no right to. Ren heard, as if through miles of fog, a keening scream, and it echoed within him, over and over.

Finally Han slipped out of his grasp, body sliding off the harsh red light of the blade, into the dark pit below, and Ren could hear nothing. He waited to feel a rush of power, a weight off his shoulders, but instead he found a crushed sensation in his chest, like the breath had been knocked out of him. Then all he could feel was a rapidly heating pain in his side, and he was stumbling to regain his balance. Chewie had shot him.

That was fair, he conceded, and then the pain turned to anger, ever his loyal companion, and he motioned for stormtroopers to attack.

 

Running. Rey was always good at that, for all her small stature. She ran with Finn from the reactor core of the Starkiller, ran to escape the explosions and the stormtroopers and the immense, desperate feeling that somehow, she could have prevented the act of betrayal and death she had just witnessed.

She had seen Kylo Ren, only a couple of hours before. She had looked down into the core of who he was, and she knew, without understanding how, that there was still a bit of Ben Solo surviving within him. At least, there had been, when she had touched his mind. Now, she’s not so sure.

She had felt the quiver in the Force, her newly awakened sense of it flickering around the pair on the bridge. There had been a conflict, not between Han and his son, but inside of Kylo- _Ben_ \- himself. If somehow, Rey could have helped him then, maybe Han would still be alive. And so would Ben.

Rey kept running. She didn’t want to slow down enough to face the grief that awaited her.

 

Minutes later, Kylo Ren stalked through the snowy woods outside the base, pounding his fist against his wounded side. The bright, sharp pain of it ripped upwards through him, feeding him adrenaline and anger. He had conquered his own sentiment, crushed his weaknesses, but felt none of the vindication he expected, only numbness. He couldn’t seem to process his actions yet. It didn’t matter; there were more important things to focus on now.

Rey was close. He tracked his Force-sense of her like a strill, a hunting beast single-minded in his quest to reach her. He was gripped with conviction that she should not escape. She still had the map in her mind, but more than that, she was too valuable a resource to let slip back to the Resistance.

In a swirl of snow, he caught sight of her, and with her the traitor, FN-2187. How the man had resisted all conditioning, years of indoctrination and training- and without an ounce of Force-sensitivity that Ren could detect- was beyond him. But it was no admirable thing to betray your cause, and Ren bristled to imagine the Resistance welcoming the ex-stormtrooper with open arms.

Sneering, he kicked up sprays of fresh powder as he marched to cut them off. Drawing out his lightsaber, he let the violent red glow of it announce his presence in the snowy night. The pair pulled up short, breathing hard, but surprisingly vicious toward him, emotions coming off of both in angry waves.

Recognizing the bigger threat, Ren was quick to send Rey flying backward, angling her body into a tree with just enough momentum to knock her out without damaging her. The traitor he could dispatch easily.

Except, as he discovered, his wound was more of a hindrance than a source of passion for him to wield. That must have been the reason he was feeling weaker, sluggish. Even the sight of his grandfather’s saber in the hands of this rebel trash was not enough to spark his ire into full strength. It confused him, and gave the ex-stormtrooper more of an edge than he rightly deserved. He clipped Ren on the shoulder, and Ren let the rage of it flow into him. He had to be quick about this.

With a flurry of elaborate moves, twisting and stepping into offensive angles well beyond Finn’s basic weapons training, Ren sent the blue saber spiralling out of his opponent’s hand, and with a final spin, knocked him down with a glancing blow.

Behind the fallen soldier, Rey was stirring. Kylo Ren walked towards her at a measured pace, taking stock of his wounds, his faculties, and strength with the Force. He could not place the sensation of instability he felt, both disorienting and foreign. He pounded on his side, calling up blood and agony to clear his head.

Ahead of him, Rey knelt over the traitor, tears streaming, her emotions swelling the flow of Force around her. If Ren could make her see how strong she was when she focused her passion, maybe she would join him even now.

But first- he turned, his Force-sense catching on the blip of energy from his grandfather’s saber, lying in the snow a few yards away. He lifted his hand to call it to him, the weapon that would finally be in its rightful place, and it came flying-- only to shoot past him and land in the grip of the untrained girl.

 _Whap_.

The lightsaber met Rey’s palm as she stood over the body of her friend. She felt held together by sheer will alone, and just barely at that. The snow fell diagonally, catching on her lashes, melting rivulets down her cheeks, coldly washing away her tears. She could not tell what shape Finn was in, only that he was still alive, but bleeding steadily. It was up to her to get him someplace safe. She had to find Chewie and escape this freezing, wet planet before the Resistance destroyed it, or the First Order stopped them. At this point, she was very near to not caring either way.

 _Still. We had better kriffing win_ , she thought.

Reaching for Luke’s lightsaber had felt like taking the hand of friend. As if she had done it a hundred times before, she found its energy calling out to her, and simply invited it to be in her hand. Watching it fly past Kylo Ren was a shock and a thrill, giving her hope that she might yet make it out of this night alive.

The last time she had slept or eaten seemed like days ago, but Rey felt a thrumming, livid energy flow through her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow responsible for Han’s death, that maybe she had to do something now to make amends for it. Only, she’s not sure if that would mean killing Kylo Ren, or trying to save him.

Igniting the blade, its aqua glow comforting, she took a defensive pose, waiting for him to come at her. In that moment, she couldn’t see the son of Han Solo standing there, only his murderer, even without the black mask covering his face.

Ren had frozen when she caught the saber, equally shocked, but the second she turned it on, he picked up his pace, a practiced swing of his own saber promising swift retribution.

Angry and grief-torn, Rey tightened her hold on Luke’s weapon and stood her ground as he charged, meeting Kylo’s red blade in a shower of sparks. Her informal lessons from ruffians on Jakku kicked in automatically, underhanded tactics that exploited weakness, while protecting the fighter.

It felt odd to be using a saber instead of her staff, but much of the principal was the same. She found remarkable strength within her fury, her grief and loss fueling her to match Ren blow for blow, until the earth beneath their feet rumbled. A dramatic fluctuation in the Force warned them just seconds before chunks of ground around them simply collapsed, falling down into nothing.

Rey found herself pressed up against the lip of a great crack in the earth, blue blade pushed to red, with no room to spare. The light reflected off of both their faces, now inches apart, and Rey was startled to hear his voice in her head.

_Do you see how strong you are, when you use your anger?_

_Shut up_ , she thought back at him.

“You need a teacher,” he continued, aloud. “I can show you the ways of the Force.”

A vision was thrust at her, in which they were both clad in black, seated cross-legged at the top of mountain. A beautiful valley stretched below them on this green and peaceful planet. He was watching as she focused, eyes closed, and suddenly a massive boulder was floating off the ground, her doing. _You’re stronger than you know_ , his voice said.

Rey turned her face away, wincing. Mind-to-mind, she yelled back at him, _you’re a monster._

Inelegantly, she shoved her memory of Han falling into darkness back at Ren. He flinched, then angrily twisted their blades, pressing her sideways and down. She tripped over her feet in an effort not to fall over the edge, landing hard on her back. The saber was still in her grasp, but she lacked the leverage to swing, and her breath hitched to realize she was at his mercy once more. She looked up through the fall of snow, expecting death.

Only, he was not swinging at her, or even pointing his blade to her throat. He was staring at her, as if for the first time, recognition and disbelief equally mixed on his face. Rey didn’t even have to try to see into his mind; whether he shared it with her, or merely left his mind open, she was there, in the vision with him, witnessing fresh horror.

It was raining in this memory, and Kylo Ren was watching through his visor as the Knights of Ren dragged children- jedi padawans- out of the same training center he so bitterly remembered from his youth. Rey gasped to see their deaths, one after another, but she was as helpless to do anything as in the visions before.

The Ren in the vision had turned to see another knight drag a small girl of four or five years out into the rain, one of the last. The girl was not crying like the other children, merely staring at Kylo Ren with large, knowing eyes. The knight holding her arm shoved her back so that she fell, looking up into the rain at her executioner. He lifted a blade above her head, but abruptly, Ren was there swinging his own weapon, and the knight fell dead at his feet. The girl had continued to stare up at him, either in shock or frightening knowledge.

He had wondered what he was doing, saving this girl on his first official mission for Snoke, but he had already picked up the child in his free arm, and his feet were carrying them both to his ship.

 _Jakku_ , he had thought. _A remote planet where no one will look for her. She’ll be safe on Jakku._  
  
Below him, the same girl blanched almost to match the snow, wide eyes now full of disbelief as she looked up at her savior.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I would love to hear what you think of the story so far. :) 
> 
> I'm also looking for a beta reader buddy, message me on tumblr if you're interested! (slantedsunlight.tumblr.com)


	3. Doors and Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the truth of their shared history comes out, Rey can't seem to untangle herself from Kylo Ren, even in her sleep. Between old heroes and new friends, her developing abilities in the Force, and whispers of fresh First Order plans, she struggles to reconcile the warring sides she's seen in Ren... but underestimates where that pursuit may lead her. 
> 
> This is where the fic earns its Explicit tag, and the author earns her ticket to hell. ;)

 

A long moment of quiet descended on Kylo Ren and Rey, snow and ash falling softly around them. As if Force-frozen, the only sound in that moment was their battle-stirred breathing, loud in the night.

A depth of shock equal to Ren’s own flowed from from the girl at his feet. He could find no grounding thought to go on; no training or lesson had prepared him for this.  More than taken aback, it felt out of place to still be brandishing his weapon at her. He slid his thumb over the switch and with a soft departing hum the blade retracted fully, leaving the two in just the cool light of Rey’s blade.

He had only a moment of warning to flick it back on before Rey launched herself at him, face now flushed even without the light of his saber upon her.

“ _You left_ me on Jakku,” she growled at him, swinging hard and fast, weapon flashing.

“I saved your life,” he gasped out. He blocked her swings automatically, still stunned.This was hardly the reaction he expected. Perhaps she would never be jumping into his arms in gratitude, but taking his life was not the thanks he would predict for saving hers.

“You gave me to a sleazy Junkboss! Some life that was!” Rey struck out viciously, spinning low to graze his calf. He hissed but didn’t press back, bewildered and distracted by a new sensation pulling like a weight within his chest, achy and sore. He didn’t remember any injury that might have caused it, but it got worse the more she talked.

A detached observation surfaced in his mind that he was coming out of shock. What waited for him on the other side of it would not be pleasant, he sensed.

“I spent years waiting, starving in that desert,” Rey continued, hacking forward.

“I did all I could! Snoke was waiting for me!” Ren countered. It was bizarre, the need he felt to explain himself. “I had to make up something about the Knight I killed as it was!”

“What about my family?” She demanded. “They were going to come back for me...they...”

Rey stopped swinging, voice doubtful. She looked at him, the question piercing in her eyes.

“Ah, I- I thought you’d be safer if you stayed put,” he stammered, the heat in his face burning against the cold. “Snoke wanted all the Jedi apprentices dead. I used a Force-suggestion to convince you that your family would come back for-” Ren was cut off by another furious series of blows as Rey bared her teeth and attacked.

It was an unfair fight already, with Ren bearing multiple wounds and a worrying chasm of something unwelcome growing within him. His connection to the Dark side felt tenuous now, his anger oddly absent, swallowed within the cavity in his chest.

Yet Rey, so new to it all, was taking to the Force like she’d been made for it, even using the Dark Side to strengthen herself, if his senses were correct.

Pressing her advantage, she struck two more hits, nonfatal but distracting, before she was suddenly much closer than she had been a moment ago. Her blade hit against his too hard, knocking it out of his hand. In one more swing, his vision filled with sky-blue pain as the tip of her saber sliced upward, catching his cheek, nose, and brow diagonally. The burn of it was blinding, literally and figuratively. When he opened his eyes again he was lying down in the snow, looking up dazedly at the fierce girl above him.

“For fifteen years I waited,” she said, dragging in heavy lungfuls of cold air, the temptation to strike him again making her voice quiver. “I never left, never took a chance at a better life, because I hoped that someday, someone would care enough to come back for me.”

She leaned over his prone form to look him in the eyes. Even through pain, Ren found he could not look away.

“Well, guess what? No one did. But somebody did come back for you, you _idiot_. Only you were too blind with power- or whatever it is you think you traded for your father back there,” she said, gesturing behind her.

The anger burning so hot within her went out in a rush, replaced with the edges of grief she had been holding back. She leaned back and sighed, frustrated.  Her saber fell to her side.

“But on the off-chance there is _even a little_ of Ben Solo left in you, I won’t add your blood to Han’s.”

Rey stepped back and retracted her blade. In the succeeding twilight, a flash of white beams from an overhead craft caught her eye, and she looked up to spot the _Falcon_.

A surging rumble beneath her feet was an equally persuasive argument to get moving.

“We’ll have to finish this conversation later,” she said distractedly, eyes scanning behind her for the _Falcon_ ’s landing spot. Turning back to look down at him, she added, “Try not to kill any more _children_ in the meantime.”

She didn’t have time to consider if it was outrage or injury that made him so pale. Without a moment to spare, she sprinted off, back toward Finn. She could hear the crack of earth behind her, worryingly close, and spared a glance back to see Kylo Ren still lying where she left him, only now there was a massive, dark gap between them. _It would have been more poetic if he had fallen in_ , she thought, near hysterical with exhaustion. Ahead of her, she spotted Chewie coming down the ramp of the ship, and one last burst of energy pushed her forward to meet him.

 

Ren could feel the snow beneath him slowly melting, seeping into his clothes, and yet he felt no great urge to try to get up after the girl had left. Perhaps, he could admit to himself, he was afraid to try.

The energy field around him shuddered. He surmised that the planet was minutes away from a complete collapse, likely to be reborn into a protostar now that it held an entire sun’s power at its core, and yet the whole business seemed far away and irrelevant after the events of the the day.

Probably back in shock again, then. Blood loss was so bothersome.

Luckily for him, Lord Snoke was not keen on losing his investments, and his seeking presence in the Force found Ren’s. He sent Hux with a ship, and Ren found himself being abruptly loaded onto a stretcher by a pair of stormtroopers, as if he were no more than cargo.  He had a lucid moment of indignation at being moved, and then for a fraction of a second his eyes caught sight of the sky, an ocean of infinite stars. Somewhere among them was a girl who used the Dark and Light sides of the Force as if they were merely interchangeable tools, not choices; a girl who had seen all he had done, his darkest parts, and yet let him live.

As the hatch of the ship closed, cutting off his view, Ren felt a fading echo reverberating in his head, a tortured query: _What have I done?,_  before his vision misted to white and he lost consciousness.

 

\-----------------------

 

Rey felt it the moment Finn woke up.

For weeks, she had worried about her friend, the severity of his injuries creating a knot of anxiety she could not untangle even in the middle of the noblest quest of her life: to find the legendary Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.

Now on the way back, she sat piloting the most famous ship in the galaxy beside a war hero Wookiee, with Luke Skywalker himself as her passenger. Jakku seemed like a fever dream from another life.

It had been equally surreal to deliver the Jedi’s old lightsaber in the middle of nowhere, on a planet with more water than even her dreams could fathom.

What do you say when you meet a legend? Rey had no idea. Fortunately for her, it seemed Luke was the quiet type of mystic hero. He had acted like her arrival was planned, greeting her with warm recognition and boarding the _Millennium Falcon_ as if it were a public shuttle.  

Rey was a little stunned at how quickly it had happened, but Luke, too, had recognized her as a former padawan. Her energy signature in the Force was like a fingerprint he recalled, despite the years and her complete blank regarding him. A jarring echo of Kylo Ren’s memories flitted through Rey’s mind as she made her way back to the cockpit, an image of herself as a child. She didn’t like where the thought led; to speculation about her rescuer, the Light left in Kylo Ren and, for that matter, what had become of him since she left him bleeding in the snow. She banished this line of thought every time it surfaced.

Luke was less of a distracting presence than she expected. Though kind to her, he spent much of his time in deep conversation with Chewbacca or meditating in the ship’s crew quarters. Rey didn’t feel like it was an appropriate time to ask him any of the horde of questions she had, but that left her with a lot of time to think. Hating to be idle, she tried to work on testing her new abilities, even attempting some mediation of her own, when Chewie didn’t need her help.

More often than not, she fell asleep.

Her dreams had always been strange, a disquieting mix of sand and salt water. She often dreamt of drowning, in either or both. But lately, she was seeing new things whenever she drifted off. Sometimes they were nonsense images, a dancing BB-8, or climbing endless ropes; other times they felt... different.

A vividness struck her with visions of Finn, asleep, the pilot Poe Dameron keeping watch over him.

Other times it was darker, colder, but just as vivid. She caught odd bits of emotion, accompanied by jagged pictures: a smear of blood on a dull metal wall; a crippling fear as a pair of black, malevolent eyes loomed closer; a medi-droid spraying stinging fluid into an ugly, half-healed wound; a quiet, almost undetectable ache of grief.

 _Rey._ She could hear his voice, a whisper in the dark. _Where are you?_

She came awake with a start.

Maybe meditation was doing more than lulling her to sleep, she pondered, wiping sweat off her brow and tears from her eyes. She pulled her hand away from her side, half-expecting to see blood.

 

From the very edge of the outer-rim to the Resistance base on D’Qar was a three-week journey. Rey couldn’t recall ever spending so much time on a ship, and her skin itched to feel naked sunlight, some fresh air rather than recycled. She wondered all the time how Finn was doing, so when a bright blip of familiar energy flared on the outskirts of her new senses, she sat bolt upright and grinned in relief. He was awake!

It was even more tedious after that, with several days to go before they reached the Illeenium System. Rey was all restless nerves now, meditation next to impossible. She bounced around the ship, cleaning and looking for electronic components to improve, causing only one small fire before Chewie got antsy and made her sit still long enough to play Dejarik, the holo-chess game. She had trouble keeping up with the rules, but he seemed amused to be winning so easily, so she didn’t focus too much on improving.

Finally they broke lightspeed, and the verdant blue and green of the planet filled most of the _Falcon’_ s viewports. Rey guided the ship down to the Resistance base while Chewie toggled engine switches and signalled their arrival. The starport gates granted them entrance, and Rey parked smoothly, mouth twitching as she recalled her first takeoff. She had come a long way since then.

Luke was first off the ship when they disembarked. By the time Rey stepped off the ramp, General Organa was hugging him tightly amid a crowd, while everyone around seemed to be tactfully ignoring the tears in Luke and Leia’s eyes.

Finn was waiting for Rey a little further back, trying to look serious but cracking under the urge to grin. For her part, Rey tried to take her time walking over, but in the last few steps she was nearly running as she launched herself at him.

“It’s so good to see you up and about!” she said as she squeezed her arms around him, smiling so hard it hurt her cheeks.

“Took you long enough! What, did you stop for drinks with Luke Skywalker?” he teased. Rey spotted Poe, who waved to her on his other side, and she smiled hello, before Finn released her from his embrace and mustered a more somber expression.

“We’re not just here to welcome you back. Allies of the Resistance just sent information about new First Order plans this morning. General Organa has been waiting for you and Luke to discuss it. We’re supposed to have a meeting immediately,” he said.  

The welcome party was already leaving, led by the General and Luke. The trio followed, threading through the spaceport to the maze of offices and conference rooms beyond. 

 

“The Starkiller base was not the only First Order super-weapon in development.”

Resistance member and former Admiral, Gial Ackbar, stood at the head of a long holo-table, in a dim, windowless conference room deep within the base. Fifteen or twenty Resistance members sat before him, meeting his proclamation with a mixture of stunned silence and grim acceptance.

“Our sources are still working on discovering what this second weapon is, but we know it’s already several years in-the-making, and a closely-guarded secret, known only to the upper-ranks of the First Order,” he continued.

“Do we know where is it?” Poe asked, arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair.

“We know only that it’s in the trailing outer rim of the Galactic North, but much of that territory remains uncharted,” replied General Organa. The room was quiet for a moment as the group paused to consider this.

“Why are we only hearing about this now?” Finn wondered aloud.

“It seems that with the Starkiller destroyed, efforts to develop this second weapon have greatly increased,” Ackbar said.

Sitting across from Poe, Rey was struck with a dizzying moment of deja vu, a vision of another room, another meeting. She recognized Captain Phasma’s chrome helmet from Resistance reports, and several others in the uniform of the First Order.

_“We already have a fully competent Army,” one of the generals was saying, sneering._

_“Consider this ‘Special Forces’, General.” The low voice was too familiar now, layered beneath the metallic hum of the mask._

_“Is that a joke, Ren?” Phasma asked._

Her voice faded rapidly as Rey came back to herself and the Resistance meeting before her. She tried to keep her breathing even, hoping no one had noticed, but both Luke and Leia cast glances her way from the other end of the table, but redirected their attention to a currently-speaking Ackbar before anyone else caught on.

“Our spies and allies continue to seek out further details, but for now, this is extent that we know.”

“Thank you, Gial,” the General said. “We’ll regroup once further details come through.” She nodded at the group in general and that seemed to signal a dismissal.

 

Walking toward the mess hall after the meeting, Finn, Poe, and Rey were chatting over each other excitedly when the General called Rey back.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Rey told the boys. Finn looked concerned but Poe tugged on his arm, and the two of them kept walking.

Leia gestured to a stairwell and Rey followed her up a few of flights of steps, emerging on the grey, flat roof of the base. The sun was setting, catching on the leaves of the forest surrounding them. Rey took a deep breath. She had forgotten how lovely sunshine was.

General Organa turned at the metal railing framing the roof to look at Rey, and smiled softly at the young woman’s obvious enjoyment of the fresh air.

“I’m sorry to pull you away from your friends, but we didn’t have time earlier, and I wanted to thank you for bringing my brother back to me.” Leia said.

“It was no problem,” Rey replied, surprised. She wasn’t used to people thanking her.

Leia paused, looking out across the treetops silhouetted in fading peachy light. The sunset glinted on the silver in her hair, making her look vibrant despite her age and sad eyes.

“I don’t mean to pry, Rey, since we’ve only begun to know each other, but I have to ask you something.”

Rey knew, before the General spoke the words, what she was going to say. She lifted her chin, bracing for the question.

“I felt something during that meeting,” Leia said, “a presence I was quite surprised to sense...especially since it seemed to be channeled through you.” Her eyes swept back to meet Rey’s. “Are you... in contact with Ben?”

“Not on purpose,” Rey said, only it came out sounding more like a question. “I sometimes get flashes of, I don’t know, his surroundings, or his dreams maybe?”

“How? Do you know where he is?” Leia said, her hand reaching out to grip Rey’s shoulder.

“No,” Rey said, apologetic. “I don’t even know why it happens. I can’t consciously reach him.”

“Have you tried?” Leia asked, dropping her hand and adopting a more professional manner.

Rey realized abruptly that she hadn’t. “Well. No, I-”

She stopped, tilting her head, brow furrowed in thought. Without speaking further, she closed her eyes and tried to reach out, the way she had before, when she’d pushed her way into his mind.

At first, it felt like she had stepped into a dark, unfamiliar room, searching aimlessly for a light switch without knowing if there even was one. Then she changed tactics and entered into the first steps of mediation, clearing her mind, calling into it an image of Ren’s face as she had last seen it, pale and burned. She felt something then, a brush against her awareness, almost like a tug on a fishing line. She followed the sensation. She could see something now, a blur of movement, which resolved into stars streaking by at lightspeed. Then it was gone.

“He’s traveling,” Rey said, opening her eyes to see the General looking at her anxiously. “I couldn’t see anything else, but I can keep trying.”

“I’m sorry to ask it of you, but yes, that would be helpful- not only to me, but to the Resistance. Ben may be with the second First Order weapon, or at least know about it. We can use all the help we can get.”

Rey nodded, then pursed her lips, hesitating to ask, but too curious not to. “General, after everything that’s happened with... him, do you…” she trailed off, unsure how to phrase it.

Leia’s voice was gentle, “Do I still see him as my son?”

Rey nodded again.

“The short answer is yes.” Leia paused, her mouth curving up into a wry smile. “Believe it or not, he’s a lot like his father.”

Rey raised an eyebrow, measuring her memories of Han against Kylo Ren, and then against a younger Ben Solo, trying to see the resemblance.

Leia continued, “When I met Han, he was a stubborn, cut-throat, two-faced smuggler, only looking out for himself. I thought he was scum, and I wasn't far off. And then Luke and I pretty much dragged him into being a good person,” she went on, her voice coming out in a breathy near-laugh.

“Now, if I imagine _that_ Han having Force-sensitivity… it paints a pretty terrifying picture. I probably should have seen it coming with Ben.” She sighed. “You can feel it though, can’t you, Rey? That there is still good in him?”

Rey recalled the memories she’d navigated through, the misled young man searching desperately for belonging, running from misplaced guilt, and saving small girls from certain death. She also thought about Han falling, and winced at that first-hand memory.

“I don’t know anymore,” she answered quietly.  The General considered her neutrally.

“Forget what you know, when you reach out. Don’t let your judgment be clouded by your feelings.”

The words had the weight of a lesson, and in the back of her mind, Rey wondered if she should try asking this Skywalker when she had questions about the Force, instead of the other. It took her a moment to refocus her attention as the General continued speaking.

“I know a thing or two about the Dark side of the Force,” Leia said slowly, eyes far off, reliving memories of her own. “As powerful as it is, it needs the Light to exist, and vice versa. It’s much harder to be wholly one or the other than most people think.” She looked back to Rey. “I carried Ben, raised him with Han, and watched my brother train him to be a strong Jedi; even though we failed him in some ways, we succeeded in others. I know him, and I feel the Light in him, even now, surrounded as he is by Darkness.”  
  
Rey felt the truth of the General’s words as a buzz through the Force, and she smiled as the older woman reached out to squeeze her hand before letting go. The last of the day’s light slipped below the horizon, and a cooler breeze sent a drawn out rustle of leaves stirring around them.

“I’m sorry to have kept you so long, I’m sure your friends are waiting,” Leia said. “Go on. We can talk more later, if you like.”

 

Rey followed the stairway back down to the main level of the base on autopilot, occupied with wondering how much of the General’s faith in her son was wishful thinking. But Leia was such a practical person, and Rey herself had seen the boy Kylo Ren had been, the glimpses of him she might have seen even recently, maybe. She resolved to look for him over their Force-connection. Starting tonight.

 

Sitting crossed-legged on the standard-issue cot in her assigned cubby-sized private room, Rey was grateful for both the privacy and her own conditioning to living in small spaces. She had spent a blissful hour in the equally-private ‘fresher adjacent to her room, enjoying the hot water and extravagant luxury of taking her time. Refreshed and reclothed in just a soft cream tunic, the matching pants too long for her short frame, she felt parts of herself relax that had been tensed for eons.

From there, it was an easy thing to slip into a meditative state. Somewhat ironically, it was Master Luke’s instructions she followed, not from his direct tutelage, but out of Ben Solo’s memories. There was the door to a deeper peace, a union with the energy of all the life around her. Her breath slowed to the pace of sleep, but Rey was already past awareness of her body, mind feeling through lightyears to touch another consciousness.

It was as simple as following a well-worn path. She met a surprising warmth first, so different from the flashes of cold and pain before. A pleasant glow of comfort surrounded Ren’s mind, and Rey felt the curve of his lips, a smile, and then she heard waves, water rushing up to meet a black sand shore. She caught a glimpse of dark skies, more starlight than blackness. Then he was in the water, surprisingly warm as it rushed his calves, thighs, and up over the rest of his skin, bubbles tickling him. Rey felt a distant matching warmth in her cheeks as she realized he was naked.

He breached the surface of the waves and sucked in a deep breath, tilting back to float, buoyant in the sea. He ran his hands down his chest, and Rey could feel his skin, pale and scarred, but the muscles beneath were strong and his fingers felt nice, moving over them.

With the logic of dreams, he was suddenly cradled on the soft sands of the beach, still warm from the day’s sun, and a moon has risen to sparkle across the water. The sand shifted, becoming silky sheets, and Ren was turning to press his face into the flushed skin of someone’s throat, bodies aligned with need. Rey was overtaken with the intimate scene, sucked into it, feeling what Ren felt.

He tasted salt where his mouth pressed against her skin, and she arched up, the heat of their bodies together making them sweat. Rey’s consciousness narrowed to a point, wound tightly with his. She felt lost to the sensation of his hands caressing up, threading through hair to turn her head and kiss her, softer than she expected. A gentle graze of teeth crossed her bottom lip, and she felt his hand brush down to cup a breast, small and soft, gooseflesh raising at the sensation.

Ren rolled to the side, granting himself better access to her body. His hand slipped lower to grasp her hip, and then slowly, swirled closer to her inner thighs.

“Can I-?” he breathed, voice deeper than she’d ever heard it, and Rey didn’t know if it was her voice or the dream girl’s that answered, _yes._

His touch was feather light, gently nudging her legs apart, and Rey couldn’t tell where the tightness in her lungs came from, Ren or herself, but her heart was beating erratically as he dipped his fingers to touch her and she was _so slick_ already, his breath hitching at the discovery, tracing a finger up to her clit and circling it as she gasped, her whole body feeling electrified.

As the heat within her built, her awareness seemed to grow sharper, sensation peaking. He shifted again to kneel between her legs, freeing his left hand to slide it over her thigh, kneading muscles as he continued to roll the thumb of his right hand rhythmically over the perfect spot. Her body tensed, pulsing as he slowly slid one of his long fingers inside her, curling it upward slightly. She felt her muscles contract around him, deliciously spiking her pleasure, but not enough, not yet. _Please, Ren,_ she tried to say, so far gone she didn’t remember anything beyond this moment, her desperate need to come.

She looked down across the plane of her body and caught him smirking at her, pupils blown with arousal. His dark hair hung around his face as he leaned lower, fingers still working. Just as he added a second finger, slipping it into her with the pressure she craved, he moved his skilled thumb off her clit, replacing it with his soft, hot mouth, and _sucked_.

Rey felt like she had made the jump to lightspeed, all pleasure and fullness and dream-quality carelessness flying over her. Her body continued to pulse for a long moment around his fingers as she dragged in ragged breaths. Then she opened her eyes again and Ren was looking down at her strangely, with dawning perception.

“You,” he said, recognition a shock to them both, and like a dropped transmission, Rey lost the connection. She came back to herself with a startled gasp, the cool air of her room hitting her face like a splash of cold water. She was lying prone on her bed now, tunic hitched up erratically, and her own hand was still between her legs, limbs feeling boneless.

“Well,” she whispered aloud to herself, still fuzzy on endorphins and surprise. So much for reporting her findings to General Organa, she thought.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a huge challenge to write, and I couldn't have turned it into something worth reading with the help of my genius beta, bluebellbeau. I also had some great input from LovelyThings and my friend Karen (who doesn't even ship Reylo, but has great taste in smut); their support made all the difference. If you, dear readers, have comments or critiques, I'm all ears. Hearing what you think so far is what pushes me to keep writing!


	4. Touch and Go

_Ren’s warm, velvety lips pressed slowly against her ear, her cheek, the very corner of her mouth-_

“Rey,” Master Luke said, and she was startled out of the daydream. She flushed sheepishly, feeling the breeze against her heated face, and straightened her spine where she sat, keeping her eyes closed to avoid any judgement in Luke’s.

They sat on a different rooftop than the one Rey had visited with General Organa. This terrace was on a lower level, closer to the forest’s edge, with trees casting dappled, shifting shadows across them both. It was further from the main offices and the hangar, the quiet offering a suitable space for meditation, or so Master Luke said. Just a few days ago, she had worked up the courage to ask the Jedi Master if he would help her hone her talent. As much as she was growing used to her new senses, Rey still felt out of her depth when it came to using the Force defensively, and she had a bad feeling she would need those skills again.

At first, Luke had been resistant to giving any sort of instruction. He claimed to be out of practice and proven to be ill-suited to the task, given his track record with Ben Solo, but Rey was persistent. She had hoped at first that General Organa would be able to help her, but the older woman was quite busy as it was, running covert operations and training new recruits in preparation for the next encounter with the First Order. Since Rey’s arrival two weeks ago, there had been no new information about the mysterious second weapon, but the General knew things could change at any moment and was resolutely preparing all personnel, droids, vehicles, and weapons for imminent deployment.

With the General out of her reach, Rey had no one else to ask but Luke, and she pleaded her case until he agreed to give her a few basic lessons in meditation and control. Beyond that, he warned, he was not comfortable training her. She was eager to agree, glad to have any guidance. The whole exchange reminded her of begging combat lessons off outlaws on Jakku, trading extra portions when she had them, and turning up all her charms; she’d gotten pretty good at winning them over. When Luke finally caved, Rey tried to wipe the self-satisfied smile off her face before it even materialized, but he caught the twitch of her lips and read her unshuttered emotions anyway, rolling his eyes and gesturing for her to follow him.

Now into their third day of lessons, Rey was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t better off figuring this out on her own. Master Luke’s idea of a lesson had so far been nothing more than hours of meditation. This was vexing for several reasons: one, that she already had this training from Ben’s memories, and two, that without a tangible goal in mind, she was prone to falling asleep in the middle. It was simply not in her nature to be still for long. She had stayed put on Jakku for many years, but was never idle; there was always work to be done, or something to be learned. She didn’t feel like she was learning much now, dwelling within the quiet, vast space of open meditation.

It was embarrassing, to be caught drifting from her task, and doubly so when the cause of her distraction was a piece of a dream she would very much like to stop thinking about altogether.

In truth, she hadn’t been angry or scandalized to realize what had happened on her first night in the base, only surprised. She assumed most people had those kinds of dreams sometimes; she wasn’t new to them herself. Yet it was hard to align Kylo Ren with her image of the average man, possessing all the same hormones and desires. The only desires she’d seen in him previously were for power and control, and deep below those, the wish to belong.

Still, Rey couldn’t blame him for what his subconscious conjured up, and she certainly hadn’t _planned_ to participate. She hadn’t even know such a thing was possible, through the Force. It had just happened. As confusing as it had been to place Kylo/Ben into one category in her mind, she floundered to sort through her feelings now. She resolved that night, after she had recovered herself from the moment, to mentally block any further reflection on his calloused hands or what they were capable of.

But apparently, she hadn't mastered the mental block against even herself, yet. The images lingered on the edge of her mind, seeping through in derailing, vivid clarity, especially when she opened herself up in meditation.

More than anything, she was anxious to know what he thought of it all; if he had realized her presence upon waking, or if he thought she was just part of his dream. A cringe-worthy speculation indeed. Rey hadn’t tried to reach him again, and her visions had subsided for the time being, which was... perturbing.

Trying to refocus, she hoped Luke couldn’t tell the reason for her flush, or flustered feelings.

“You’re a holo, Rey, I can see right through you.” Luke said. She flinched, but remembered that he couldn’t read her thoughts without her feeling it. She knew what to look for by now; it was her expansive, unfiltered depth of feeling that gave her away, according to her teacher.  

“Focus on the blank slate you feel when you meditate,” he continued. “Make it your shield, so that others can’t read your thoughts and feelings.”

It sounded logical, she supposed, but it wasn’t quite coming to her in practice. A spark of irritation flared within her, frustration that she couldn’t master this task and move on to the next.

“ _That_ ,” Luke said, spearing her thought like a knife through a sand rat, “is exactly what you have to let go of. Each new emotion you allow is both a distraction to yourself and an advantage your opponent gains. If he knows what you feel, he can predict what you’ll do, without ever needing to read your thoughts.”

“How am I supposed to stop feeling things?” Rey asked, eyes still closed but struggling not to speak through clenched teeth.

“Jedi padawan are taught from day one that releasing yourself from feelings allows you to see clearly; in the void of emotion, the Force has room to fill you with strength and clarity. Anger, irritation, and other passionate emotions only invite the Dark side of the Force to bend you to its will, rather than the other way around.”

She frowned, recalling her battle in the snow with Ren. She had been very angry that night, and the Force had answered her with strength and guidance in combat. She had felt the pull to keep going, the momentum of wrath urging her to kill Ren where he lay, but she had put that off as battle rage, and come back to herself within moments. It hadn’t felt all that different from the other ways she’d used the Force that day, each tugging her forward, but giving her the choice to follow.

“It doesn’t feel that black and white to me,” she muttered, not quite daring to raise her voice in challenge to a Jedi Master.

“Who asked whom for lessons in the Force?” Luke asked quietly, but there was a sardonic bite to his words; he had definitely heard her.

“I just don’t understand how shutting off all feeling makes you a better Jedi,” Rey replied, more meekly this time. “Don’t you need feelings to judge right from wrong?”

Luke was silent long enough that Rey cracked an eyelid to look over. He was staring at her in preoccupation.

“Master Luke?” she prompted.

“I had another padawan ask me that, once,” Luke said. “I’ll give you the answer I should have given him.”

Rey opened both her eyes to stare back at Luke, a ripple in the Force making her shiver. She didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about.

The Jedi went on, “Don’t try to turn off your feelings- you’re right, that would be impossible. Instead, acknowledge them, but don’t let them control you. Find your neutral center, the fulcrum that hold the scales. It is the choice you make from there that matters.”

Rey had the impression that he was speaking through her, rather than to her. She nodded slowly all the same.

 

\-------------------------------

 

“So when are we gonna see some of your new Jedi moves?” Finn asked, sitting down across from Rey with a tray of regulation, nutritionally balanced fare at her chosen table in the wide mess hall. He immediately reached for her packet of energy pudding, swapping the green crinkly package for his own Kessinnamon cake. Rey smiled at him. He knew she loathed the tangy pudding, but he was used to even blander stormtrooper fare, and didn’t mind it. She also knew that when he ate both his and her packets, he was delightfully hyper, chattering away and hopping around until the buzz wore off. She and Poe had a theory that three packets would get him drunk, but so far neither of them had convinced him to test this idea.

“I told you yesterday, I haven’t learned any ‘moves’ yet,” Rey replied, exasperation tinting her voice.

Poe came from behind her to sit on her left, his own tray balanced in his arms on top of his pilot’s helmet. He set them both on the table as Finn griped, “Rey is holding out on us,” in a betrayed tone.

“Too cool to share your mind-witch feng shui with us, huh Rey?” Poe asked, eyes on her face, but grinning in Finn’s direction.

“Yes, entirely too cool for you both. Be careful that you don’t piss me off. I could take you even before I became a Jedi apprentice,” she sniffed haughtily, but it was obvious she was fighting her own smile. Finn’s laugh was infectious.

In the month Rey had spent at the Resistance Base, the three of them had fallen into a comfortable habit of shared meals and free time, whenever they weren’t off attending to their duties.

Poe Dameron was an upper-level Resistance leader, his skills and sharp mind earning him the honor of training new flight recruits and sitting in on meetings with General Organa, but he didn’t appear to care much about rank. His own workload be damned, Poe had immediately taken Finn under his wing after the ex-stormtrooper had recovered from his coma. Finn’s insider knowledge was a valuable asset to the Resistance, so no one found it out of place that he was suddenly accompanying Poe to every top level meeting.  Rey’s Force sense caught the flashes of relief that hit Finn every time Poe gestured for him to come along; Finn was clearly pleased to have a place here. She thought she also picked up a curious amount of gladness in Poe to have him, but she tried not to probe any deeper into that, knowing how much she valued her own privacy.

Rey herself was kept busy with a series of assigned tasks befitting her skill set, amounting to mechanics work on the fleet and even a bit of teaching her fellow mechanics, when her tech-hacks trumped a few of the more time-consuming jobs. She spent most of her remaining time with Luke, so she was grateful for these little social breaks. It still felt a bit odd to have friends. Good, but odd.

“Well power down, Jedi Master Rey, because I’ve got a surprise for you,” Finn said, shoving the last crumbs of his meal into his mouth.

“Hey, don’t I get any credit?” Poe interjected.

Finn offered a crooked apologetic smile, amending his words: “Sorry, _we_ have a surprise for you. Can you come down to the hangar, Bay 16, after dinner?”

“I’m supposed to have a lesson tonight…” Rey began, but Finn had learned the art of puppy eyes, and her protest melted. She could feel Poe smirking next to her, but had seen him succumb to the same look enough times not to take offense.

“I’ll ask Master Luke for a night off,” she promised, curious what the two of them had planned.

Ileenium, the planet’s single sun, was setting when Rey entered the hangar, lighting the interior of with its red glow on the way down. As she passed Bays 30 through 17, the beam bathed each ship in flames, and it turned Finn and Poe to bright figures ahead of her, when she spotted them. They had beat her to Bay 16 by ten minutes, insisting they needed the head start to prepare, and driving her crazy with curiosity. When she stepped past the lines marking Poe’s domain, BB-8 rolled rocket-fast to her feet, and she crouched to greet the droid, missing what was off about the scene in front of her.

The first ship inside the bay was familiar to Rey, the black and orange X-wing that Poe called his pride and joy. The ship was currently in the best shape of its life, after months of repair and a few tips from Rey, in fact. Looking up from BB-8, Rey was so caught up admiring the lines of the craft that it took her a moment to realize a second ship stood behind it.

The larger grey vessel was one of the Resistance shuttles, built for only a handful of people at once, but with considerably more room than Poe’s starfighter. Usually, these ships lived on the opposite side of the hangar. Rey stood, about to ask what they were doing, when Finn jogged up the gangway, disappearing inside. Rey turned to Poe, thoroughly puzzled, but looked back up at the ship where Poe was pointing. In the cockpit, she spotted Finn strapping himself into the pilot seat. Her eyes grew wider.

“He can fly?,” she asked.

“We’re about to find out,” Poe responded. He waved her aboard the shuttle, and she followed, her surprise giving way to excitement.

“Since when can you pilot a ship, _Captain_?,” she said, appearing behind Finn’s chair in the cockpit. He leaned forward to flick the engine switches, not answering her until he finished the memorized pattern of start-sequence buttons and knobs.

“Poe’s been teaching me since before you got back,” he answered, a little smug.

Rey swung her surprised gaze over to Poe, who was now sitting in the co-pilot’s chair, looking prouder than a Wookie’s mother at his protégé.

Abruptly, Finn lifted the craft off it’s landing gear, and Rey grabbed the back of his chair in alarm.

“You might want to sit down,” Finn called over his shoulder, and she took his advice immediately, falling into the smaller chair behind Finn that opened out of the wall. Poe mimed buckling up as they went higher, and she followed that suggestion too.

“Force preserve us,” Rey whispered to herself.

They zoomed forward out of the hangar in one smooth burst, erupting into the twilight as the ship steadily gained altitude.

“Taught him everything he knows,” Poe bragged, voice loud over the noise of the engines.

Then the ship dipped sharply as they hit a pocket of turbulence, and Finn swore, fighting the controls for a level course. Rey had to grip his chair again as she was thrown against her harness, and a warning tone pinged insistently from the dashboard.

“Finn is a bad learner,” Poe amended, frantically hitting buttons on his side of the cockpit. Rey laughed even as the craft shook around them. Then they dipped lower into a controlled glide and were out of the bad weather, swooping over a dark, moonlit lake below.

For a moment Rey heard her laugh echo back to her, and she wondered at the weird acoustics of the shuttle, but then she felt _him_ , the familiar weight of his presence against her mind, like recognizing a person from the sensation of their body next to yours. It was his memory of her laugh she’d heard.

 _“I see that you’re taking your studies very seriously,”_ his deep voice hummed electric through his mask.

 _“You know it’s no use to wear that thing with me, it doesn’t scare me,”_ Rey replied. She could feel her muscles tense, not sure if she was ready, or capable, for the fight-or-flight her instincts suggested.

 _“That’s true,”_ Ren said, and it was his normal voice now, the timbre sending prickles across her scalp. _Oops_ , Rey thought, hoping he couldn’t hear her. She hadn’t counted on what his voice would invoke in her, so unlike the vaguely unsettling resonance of his mask. This was worse- _definitely_ worse.  

 _“It doesn’t seem like I can keep anything private from you,”_ he continued.

Rey struggled not to react, fighting the dust devil in her stomach and the heat rising to her face.

 _“I’m not the one who pried into your head first,”_ she growled at him, her embarrassment making her defensive.

 _“No, but you’ve certainly picked up the art of it quickly,”_ he retorted. “ _Tell me, are you spying for the Resistance, or is there just nothing good on the HoloNet?”_

She couldn’t be one hundred percent certain he was referencing their shared dream, since she had seen visions and attempted to connect outside of that episode, but his tone was full of suggestion, and it set her aflame. She was torn between the urge to protest her innocence and the defensive impulse to lash out at him in return. It took only a moment for her pragmatic side to win out, as it usually did; it had occurred to her that she couldn’t ask for a better practical application of Luke’s training.

Ignoring him, she sank into the meditative trance that had become habit. Breathing deeply, her mind’s eye sought the peaceful space within, floating in the cradle of the Force surrounding her. Her irritation and embarrassment were still there, but she focused on the bigger picture, the calm center of her being. It was easy, once she stopped trying to battle herself.

He rushed her then, jarring her with images obviously designed to unbalance and break her concentration before she could block him. Briefly, she saw the child version of herself, tears evaporating into desert air, then a blip of Finn lying bloody in the snow, but she grasped the blanket of calm around her and threw it at him. It was a bizarre, out-of-body sensation, feeling both her own emotions and the empty space holding them back. It held Ren back too. Without being able to define it, she could sense that he was still there, on the other side of her wall, but his volleys couldn’t reach her anymore. She felt remarkably level, and without trying, she realized she could still detect _his_ emotions, now a mix of frustration and begrudging respect. She held firm in her bubble of serenity until she felt him give up and leave.

“Rey? Hello, Black Leader to Rey, are you there, over?” Poe’s voice filtered through to her, and she opened her eyes, dropping the wall and meditation like a cloak from her shoulders.

“Just praying for Finn to get us back alive,” she said, smiling.

“Hey!” Finn replied. “My flying has been perfect for at least ten minutes.”

Poe gave him a look, quirking his brow.

“Okay, that bird doesn’t count, I had the right of way,” Finn protested.

Rey leaned forward to squeeze his shoulder. “I’m truly impressed, Finn,” she told him. From her seat behind him, she could just see the corner of his pleased smile.

 

\-------------------------------

_Clang clang._

Rey stirred in her bed, half-pulled out of a dream in which she was playing Dejarik on a massive board, the monsters twice her size. She rubbed at her eyes and reached down to untangle herself from the clutches of a blanket-tentacle, bracing herself for the shock of cold as her bare feet hit the duracrete floor. The sound came again, a knock against her metal door, and she called out a bleary, “Coming!”

Hitting the door switch, the panel slide back to reveal General Organa, already dressed sharply, her long silver hair pulled into a neatly braided bun. Rey straightened up, alertness flooding her.

“Good morning,” Leia said, smiling gently.

“Morning, ma’am. Did I sleep in? Is there news?”

“Not exactly,” the older woman answered. “However if you could dress and join me..?” Rey had already begun to turn around, pressing against another panel in the wall to open her drawer of meager clothes, freshly disinfected via the compartment’s chemical processing. She grabbed the articles of her usual outfit and was in and out of the ‘fresher before the automatic timer on her front door could slide it shut. Leia met her once again in the hall, amusement in her eyes, and she led Rey down to a lower level at the next bank of lift tubes.

They entered a long hallway with various rooms dedicated to training Resistance troops in combat. Rey had only been down here a few times, to meet Finn or watch a training session on the rare days she finished her work early. She knew enough basic self-defense that she hadn’t felt the urge to enroll in extra classes, but they could be entertaining.

They turned off to the left, entering a room with grey foam padding on the walls and floor, and a few chairs against the back. Luke was there waiting for them.

“Master Luke?” Rey asked, surprised. She looked between brother and sister for a moment, waiting for an explanation.

“Hello, Rey,” he said, calm as ever.

“Luke tells me you’ve mastered the basics of meditation and mental blocking,” Leia told her. “I thought you might like to learn a few defensive skills too.”

Rey’s brows shot up. “Really?” she asked, twisting to look at Luke.

“Leia can be very...persuasive,” he offered, sighing but smiling softly.

The General winked at Rey, and then gestured for her to sit down on the foam mat floor.

“Let’s start with some lifting,” she said, and Luke nodded, guiding them into basic meditation.

He began this new lesson by directing Rey to feel the eddies of life force around objects. It was a bit like an optical illusion, something easy to miss until looked for, and then _bam_ , it popped into sight. After a few minutes of trying, Rey finally found the threads of energy that defined the pile of stones Luke had set before her. She was so used to feeling people, tuning out their palpable emotions as tactfully as she could, that she hadn’t noticed before how the Force flowed around inanimate objects, too. They buzzed in the background, white noise beneath the louder human projections.

Suddenly the shape of the room around her was evident, as if a mist had cleared from her perception. Eyes closed, she could _see_ the smooth river stones, grey and blue and brown, in a heap before her. A small laugh escaped her, full of amazement that this other level had existed without her once noticing it.

“Very good, Rey,” Luke said, his words rebounding within her, memories of a warm lakeshore running parallel to her current setting in the training room. She could recall a younger Luke, another padawan making him proud, feeling the same wonderment and pride she felt now. Ben had done this in his own training, she realized. She knew why the juggling act felt so familiar to her already. In her memory, she saw the lazy zigzag above palms that were not her own, stones the color of a different planet, red and purple. She took a deep breath, pushing the images back down.

“Now for the fun part,” Leia said on her other side.

By the time breakfast was being served, Rey was able to juggle seven stones without touching them, and had even graduated to lifting Leia in a chair a few inches off the ground. It was a lot easier than she had expected, now that she saw the thread of energy that needed pulling, an expression of her considerable will the only tool she needed.

Rey was still smiling to herself as she entered the bright, artificially-lit mess hall, one of the first to arrive that morning. She was pleased to see that her timing allowed her to grab a jogan fruit, a luxury the base didn’t always have, and usually the first breakfast items to go when it did. She swiped a can of simcaf as well, knowing her early morning would catch up to her without the stimulant.

Settling at her usual table, she held the jogan in her palm and gave it a little tug with the Force, floating the glossy purple fruit just above her hand. It was still a marvel to accept that she was doing this, using her own connection to the Force. She could just imagine Finn’s face when she showed him, gleeful to finally have an impressive “jedi trick” under her belt.

But it wasn’t Finn she heard next.

 _“Well done,”_ Kylo’s voice sounded through her head, a sarcastic echo of Master Luke’s praise. _“Did you figure that out on your own, or did Skywalker teach you? I didn’t think the old man still had it in him.”_

The fruit fell back into Rey’s palm as her focus shattered, and she scowled.

 _“It’s too kriffing early for this,”_ she complained. _“Visiting hours are between 10 a.m. and go freg yourself.”_

 _“Charming,”_ he said. _“It’s so nice to know you haven’t forgotten your scavenger scum origins.”_

 _“Are my origins really scummy if_ you're the one _who put me there?”_ She traded the fruit in her hands for the can of simcaf, twisting the lid off with force and taking a long swallow of the creamy, bitter drink.

 _“No, you did that all by yourself, apparently,”_ he quipped.

 _“Well, I do have a talent for knowing trash when I see it.”_ She began to gather her mental shield up, amused to feel his outrage.

Again, he tried to prevent her from blocking him, but this time the visions he threw at her were different.

Instead of a memory, she saw through his eyes in the present moment, a view of his reflection in the polished metal walls of his private quarters. As he pulled her gaze along with his own, she watched him reach over his shoulders to tug his plain black shirt over his head. She was given a direct view of his wide, well-muscled chest, an expanse of scars delicately scattered across it. He stood for a moment, giving her time to take in the view, before he smirked and started unbuckling the low-slung pants he wore. 

Rey felt the room grow exponentially warmer, and she lost her grip on her shield, having to start over again from scratch. As she fumbled to once more to find the placid center beneath the turmoil in her mind, another image hit her, now with the more hazy quality of a dream: his dark eyes magnetic as he stared up from between her legs, only this time she knelt above him, riding his mouth.

Rey silently shrieked against this assault, knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the table. She poured her focus into putting as much distance as possible between herself, Ren, and his salacious imagination. Finally the wall slammed shut around her, so forceful that her ears popped. She was alone at the table again, but only briefly.

“You’re up early.”

Poe slide into the seat next to her, shooting her a sleepy smile. Then he squinted and leaned closer, studying her face. “You feeling okay? You’re looking feverish.”

“Just finished a workout,” she replied, her shortness of breath backing her up.

 

\-------------------------------

 

The days passed more quickly once Rey was meeting the General and Jedi Master for combat lessons, well before dawn most mornings, followed by her daily work, and then meditation and other exercises with Luke in the evening. She fell into bed exhausted each night, but there was a pleasant satisfaction in each aching limb, and she could feel herself growing stronger and more deft with the Force.

She had expected more diligent harassment from Ren as time went on, but he left her alone for the most part, only popping in once or twice to taunt her since that morning at breakfast. Thankfully, she was getting quicker with her shield, but he had seemed distracted in the last few weeks, with hardly a flicker of his presence reaching out to hers. That was probably not good news, she thought.

In an effort to keep her promise to Leia and do what she could for the Resistance, Rey made a few more attempts to snoop via their connection, but all she could gather were the tiniest snippets before he locked her out with his own walls. None of them were helpful, and she apologized to Leia more than once, despite the General’s kind dismissal.

The busy days turns into weeks, and then, two months into her new combat training, it finally happened.

 

It was mid-morning on the base when an excited R2 unit jostled her knee as she lay beneath a starship, working on its burnt-out compressor. She lifted her head the few inches she could to hear his whistles and chirps summoning her at once, a direct request from General Organa. Sighing, she slid out from under the craft and climbed to her feet.

Swiping oil off her hands with a rag, Rey tossed her tools back into a box and let the red and white droid usher her through the halls. There was a tension in the air that twitched through the Force and, as they neared the conference room, she felt increasing flickers of excitement, fear, and anxiety radiating from within.

The holotable was already lit when she entered, casting a soft blue glow across the faces of the assembled agents.  Picked out in crisp detail was the projected map of the galaxy, zoomed out to display it edge to edge.

General Organa was already deep in conversation with a few other Resistance leaders, but the R2 droid rolled to her feet and beeped a confirmation that all invited were accounted for. The General turned to face the room, and the group settled into edgy silence.

“Thank you all for arriving so quickly. I have urgent news to share, and decisions to make that require your input.” She took a deep breath. Rey could feel the steely control the older woman kept on her emotions, and felt the shift in the Force as Leia gathered strength before continuing.

“An hour ago, a data packet was received from one of our covert agents, containing information on the First Order’s new weapon. We now know what it is, and can make a fair guess as to where.”

Her gaze flitted to Rey and then away. Beside her, Master Luke placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing, and then left his arm fall back to his side.

The General continued, “If the report is to be believed, and we think it is, then the First Order isn’t building another weapon of mass destruction. They’ve built a school, for training a new generation of Force-sensitive soldiers.”

A few people began speaking at once, but General Organa held up a hand, asking for them to wait.

“It is likely that their leader, Snoke, has hidden at this school for several years, persuading or coercing whatever young Force-sensitives his lackeys have found, while staying out of our reach. The intel indicates…” her voice waivered, but she powered forward, “...indicates that he has recently passed the bulk of this training on to his most talented Force-Sensitive follower: my son.”

Rey’s skin tingled with shock. She hadn’t been able to see anything through her connection with Ren that suggested he was training others in the Force, and yet, it made perfect sense. He had been almost cordial to her from the start, his fighting style defensive but lacking deadly intent against _only her_ ; he had even offered to train her, in their last encounter. This whole time, she realized, he’d been courting her as a potential apprentice. Even his taunts about Master Luke were designed to plant seeds of doubt within her. And what had he been doing lately, if not testing her developing talents and perhaps even attempting to outright _seduce_ her?

Rey’s revelation was interrupted as one of the lieutenants spoke above the din of surprised chatter to ask where this school was. General Organa nodded, pressing a button on the edge of the table that sent the holo zooming in, up into the Galactic North, and landing within an asteroid cloud on the edge of the system. Several of the starfleet leaders crowded in, incredulous.

“How are you supposed to find anything in that mess?” The pilot Wexley asked, peering into the slowly shifting cloud of space debris.

“I think that’s the idea, Wex,” Poe said, eyeing the display like an enticing challenge.

“We know their academy must be located on one of the larger asteroids in this cloud, but since the formation is constantly in motion, both as a whole and within the field, we have no way of knowing exactly which. It will require reconnaissance, and possibly a rescue, if we can reach the trainees. These are likely children, remember,” the General said. She kept her gaze straight ahead, through the projection, but Rey felt the screen of calm she had put up around herself.

“Do I have volunteers to carry out this mission?” Leia asked.

At least half the room raised their hands, including Rey.

“Good. Let’s get to work then.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this chapter so I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much! Let me know what you think in comments- did you see any of this coming? 
> 
> As always, my eternal thanks to my beta reader and friend bluebellbeau <3
> 
> Next chapter we really hit the juicy center of this Reylo tootsie pop, so stay tuned!


	5. Missions and Mistakes

 

It was early morning according to Galactic Standard Time, and despite the lack of stratosphere or sun cycle, Kylo Ren was following his usual “daybreak” routine on Metis Prime. He sat in the center of the bare steel floor, ignoring how the frigid surface leached his body heat. His rooms were always cold. As he reached deep into the Force, drawing stamina for the day ahead, shadows from the tumble of debris outside slid across his closed eyelids. He had one large window offering a view of the nearest sun, if he cared to look, but the light was frequently interrupted by the asteroid field’s shifting movement. Metis Prime alone remained more or less level within the cloud, the invisible dome of an energy shield around it sending projectiles harmlessly back into the mix.

It was usually the most tranquil time of day for Ren, a short break for renewal and reflection before he would don the mask and head to the combat training rooms, so new they still smelled like plasticrete. In truth, there was less cause for anger in his new position here, less room for instant failure. His days were long, but not as violent as they once were, when the heat of rage propelled him. That blaze had guttered low the night he sent Han Solo tumbling down a reactor shaft. He thought his wounds had weakened him, but he was a fast healer; by the time he stepped off the shuttle onto Metis Prime, he should have been a beacon of rage once more. Instead, that deep well of fire within him had been replaced entirely by the chill of his master’s presence, no longer a holo popping in and out, but a constant tang of power and darkness that tainted every corner of the institute.

Even here, in private, Ren could feel Lord Snoke’s cold influence more bitterly than the bite of the metal beneath him. Once, he would have embraced that consuming darkness, seeking the promise of power within; but he had come to learn over many years that Snoke would provoke him to more potent abilities, guide him even, but not gift them. The Supreme Leader was not that generous. So Ren did his best to ignore the presence, and instead sank deeper and deeper into the Force, drawing away.

He winced when his far-flung awareness bumped up against a different vitality, bright but fierce, and yet another dream of fighting Dejarik beasts flashed through Ren’s mind, the third this month. He wondered why the girl was so fixated on the game, one he hadn’t played in decades. It was annoying enough that she had managed to sneak into his own dreams; he didn’t need to see the silly contents of hers.

However, it gave him pause, now that he knew she was sleeping.

Awake, she had rapidly become adept at locking him out. No provocative image could pierce through anymore, as much as he enjoyed trying. At the start of their little game, he had thought it only fair to invade her mind the way she had his, in guileless, wanton detail. Even after she figured out the art of Force-blocking, and his amusement was dashed, he couldn’t help but feel a little impressed at how quickly she was learning. He wished his own youngling students were half as clever; it would certainly make his job less tiresome.

Conscious of the hour, and dreading the approach of morning classes, he lingered, wondering. Could her shields detect him, even in sleep?

Gently, Ren slide back into the dream world Rey had created. It was warm within, much warmer than any planet he had visited since Jakku, and he was not surprised to see sand beneath his feet when he looked down. _Homesickness perhaps?_ He quirked an eyebrow.

The roar in his ear startled him out of contemplation, and he spun, saber appearing in his hand, just in time to miss the charge of a horned beast from behind him. His gaze followed the path of the brute, tilted straight toward the slim figure currently battling a second, winged creature from above. He gritted his teeth to see her using his grandfather’s weapon again, until she kicked up into a full-body twist and her single-bladed saber sprouted a second from the opposite end.

Twin blue blades spiraled elegantly as she struck both of her assailants with the same momentum, conserving energy and doubling her striking power. A much more efficient weapon for her small frame, the staff-like device dealt with both enemies cleanly before a third challenger, this time a hairy hoofed behemoth, stalked toward her to take their place. She hadn’t seen Ren yet, too absorbed in battle to notice his entrance, but when the monster scored a blow to her ribs, Ren was across the arena space and plunging his blade into its back before Rey had fully recovered her footing.

With a guttural cry, the behemoth slide sideways, dead weight, and only then did Rey see who had assisted her. They stared at one another for a moment, a puzzled scowl already forming on her face, when two more creatures came barreling out of the shadows, one covered in spines and the other on many spindly legs, rushing them from opposite sides. As if it were old habit, they stepped to open ground, turned back-to-back, and slotted into a defensive pair stance.

It was much different, fighting as partners instead of against one another. Perhaps it was the nature of the dream, an unconscious acceptance of the bizarre, that allowed them to blend their fighting styles so seamlessly. There was no trust between them in the waking world, but the connection that tethered their minds through the Force proved as valuable as any faith. They fed each other tips, sent warnings, and moved in concert without addressing the nature of their truce. By their third round of shared battle, they had grown into a comfortable pattern, and the monsters went down faster and easier, until no more came forward to challenge them.

Breathing hard, they turned to face each other again, and Ren nearly cracked a smile at her proud expression, but caught himself, the muscles pulling oddly in his face. She seemed to notice this, or at least, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him, then turned sharply on her heel, striding away.

“Are you coming?” she called over her shoulder.

After a moment of hesitation, Ren followed, on edge, suspicious, but incapable of ignoring his curiosity.  

He couldn’t tell in dream-time how long they walked, only it seemed both instant and annoyingly far before the shape of a fallen AT-AT was suddenly in front of them, metal body dark against the clinging orange sand. Without slowing down, Rey bent and entered the rusted old war vehicle through an open panel in one of the legs. Ren wasn’t sure what to make of this, and he hesitated outside, wondering if he should follow. It could easily be a trap, especially since they were in _her_ dream; yet his connection to the real world was steadfast, and there was little risk to himself, even if it _was_ a trap. Cautiously, he leaned down and stuck his head inside the “door,” looking for Rey. She wasn’t inside the leg anymore that he could see, but from further within, the sound of metal clanging told him where to look. He knelt further and made his way inward, practically on his hands and knees to fit his tall frame through the small space.

It was dim and dusty inside, evidence of the once-impressive machine left only in the remains of wiring and useless ladder rungs, running horizontal now, up into a gunner’s seat ahead of him in the shoulder of the prone tank. He turned right instead, grateful for the widening cavern of the body, where he found Rey pouring water into a metal bowl, followed by what looked like a liquor flask.

“Here,” she said, handing him the flask. He sniffed it, expecting at least a lingering scent of alcohol, or perhaps poison, but the container smelled only of old leather and aluminum. Rey was already downing big gulps from her bowl, so Ren shrugged, too thirsty to care, and followed her example. The water tasted better than any liquor he’d ever tried, and before he knew it, he had finished the whole container.

Ren wiped his mouth and found Rey staring again, her face expectant. He coughed, unsure what to say into the vacuum of temporary amnesty between them.

“So,” he began, feeling the pressure to say something, “Dejarik?”

Rey’s mouth lifted into a half smile, as if he’d made a wry joke, and she nodded.

“It’s part of my training, believe it or not. Battle drills.”

Ren felt his eyebrows hike up of their own accord. It seemed his practiced blank expression didn’t translate so well in her dream.

“Skywalker getting too old to train you himself? I always thought he was past his prime.”  
  
Rey’s face closed up then, and Ren wondered if that had been a very stupid thing to say.

“Actually,” she drew out the word, “it was your mother’s idea.”

Ren regretted ever asking, regretted even showing up and helping her in the battle, which he now understood was not a nightmare, or at least, not anymore. He fought to maintain calm, but the mention of his mother sent a stab through him. He felt the sharp edges of the fissure in his chest opening up again, never fully closed, always sucking his strength, sapping him of anger, and leaving him raw.  

_He was fourteen again, eyes blurry with the sting of humiliated tears, and his mother’s face, so strong, never breaking, now regarded him with flat disappointment._

The shred of memory, one he had long ago buried, floated up from the rift within him, a piece of wreckage shaken loose, washed upon a foreign shore. He wasn’t that little boy anymore, the emotional, mewling child called Ben Solo. He had worked so hard to be anything else.

Rey’s hand on his wrist brought him back from the edge, a nightmare within a dream, and finally his eyes refocused. He looked at her like he’d never seen her before. Rey withdrew her hand from his skin as if burned, and she cast a contrite glance down.

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, neither sure what to say next. Then Rey’s expression turned conciliatory; she faced him again and held out a hand.

“Um. Kessinnamon cake?”

He blinked, and when he looked down she was holding a small tray of the spicy-sweet pastries he recognized from long ago. Rey was pink around the ears, but her offer seemed to be some kind of cease-fire agreement. He stared at the tray, but didn’t move.

It was then that the warning alarm chimed through Metis Prime, a shrill, cruelly loud version of a school bell. Ren’s obligations called. He sighed, already feeling the warmth of the dream draining away.

Across from him, Rey heard the alarm too, grimacing at the sound. She looked angry for a moment, ready for a fight, but Ren was already fading out from her dream. He caught the last vestiges of her image as she scrambled to her knees, reaching out to him. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, but as he came back to himself within the stark room, his hand felt unusually warmer than the rest of his still form.

Looking down, he found his fingers curled around a fresh, completely real, slightly sticky cake.

 

\-------------------------------

 

Rey woke from her shallow sleep with a flush already deeply coloring her face. She was grateful for the dim lighting in the crew quarters of the vessel, her cot washed out in fuzzy shadows from the faint orange glow of safety lights lining the floor. If anyone had been around to notice her, they probably wouldn’t see how utterly abashed she looked. Probably.

Of course, she hadn’t been expecting another dream-sharing encounter with the Most Conflicted Man in the Galaxy prior to that sleep-cycle, either. Her dream-training had become routine, a source of escape from the monotony of life aboard the _Tau-Delta_ Q-ship, on its way to the distant edge of the galaxy. From one end to the other took almost two months on a standard ship, accounting for gravity wells, fuel stops, and the odd way hyperspace channels were woven through the system. The _Tau-Delta_ was especially equipped for fast travel, designed for both speed and stealth, and still, the few weeks of journey, now nearly over, were enough to make Rey itch.

It wasn’t cabin-fever that made her cover her heated face, however. She pushed the heels of her hands up against her eyelids, trying to convince herself that she hadn’t just given her mortal enemy apology cake.

What had she been thinking? She hadn’t, in truth. It had been automatic, an insane impulse born out of pity she felt for him. She’d looked at Kylo Ren in his moment of anguish and seen a glimpse of Ben Solo, she was sure of it. What was more puzzling, then, was how she had accomplished the act. She recalled the sensation of cold, of pushing through it to shove the dense cake into his icy fingers, but she had no recollection of how; hadn’t they been in her dream?  
  
Lifting her hands, she turned her head to look at the small recessed shelf by her cot, a scattering of personal items sitting within. Next to a data tablet, her newly-constructed lightsaber and a bottle of water, a small paper wrapper lay empty, red crumbs still clinging to the inside. _Damn it._ She had been saving that for breakfast.

She couldn’t explain how she might have bridged the Force physically in addition to mentally. It didn’t make sense to her. Then again, it was also well-before the end of her scheduled sleep cycle, and Rey was not a morning person. She shelved the mystery for later in favor of rummaging by her feet for her day clothes and thrusting herself out of bed to find an empty shower stall. It was going to be a long day, but she didn’t think she could drift off again any time soon. They would be arriving at the meteor cloud within the next sun-cycle, but she could try to catch another shift of sleep later, after she’d burned off some of her nervous energy. Maybe Finn would be awake and want to spar with her.

Shuffling into the ‘fresher, Rey ignored the inquisitive side of her brain while the rest of her woke up beneath a scalding spray of recycled water.

 

\-------------------------------

 

The taste of sweet spices stayed with Ren long into the day.

He should have thrown the cake away immediately, of course. Supreme Leader Snoke would hardly approve of such indulgence from a trusted source, much less from the hands of his enemy.  Yet Ren’s internal debate had been short-lived. A spartan military diet was necessary on this barren rock in deep space, but he had a biological drive for sweets, a trait he never did entirely shake off from his previous life. The temptation to enjoy the flavor again was too strong for even Kylo Ren to withstand. Logically, he doubted it was poisoned anyway: the girl had had her chance to kill him before and failed to do so.

He ate the cake in four bites, licking sugar off his fingers greedily and feeling the warm kick of Kessinnamon wash over his tongue. The satisfaction of real food was something high-efficiency goo never really supplied, and he savored it even as he stalked toward the combat room. Hours later, he had yet to drop dead, so he supposed his instincts had been right.

Still, the oddity of the morning encounter lingered with Ren. He was distracted in class, deliberating and suspicious in turns. His students went through their typical drills, and he supervised on autopilot, pausing here and there under the glaring fluorescent lights to correct form or offer advice without the typical annoyance or impatience lacing his voice.

Over the flash of practice-sabers, the children shot each other glances when he wasn’t looking, but he could feel their confusion and a hint of excitement, the thrill of an unexpected holiday from his temper. Ren couldn’t bring himself to care.

He had been given something that morning, a kindness he had long ago accepted would never be extended to him again; it was a confusing gesture, likely not to be trusted, and it left him feeling unsettled. He had no desire to spur his students with the usual instructional pressure. He would have dismissed them entirely if not for the pulse of dark energy ever-present on the edge of his awareness, watching them. So he paced the room with half an eye on technique, but spent most of his day trying to work out how the girl had done it, and why.

He was still considering this as he stripped off his robes for bed. Boots and helmet already discarded by the door, Ren was halfway out of his shirt when his deep distraction over the scavenger girl was interrupted by the spark of her presence: not a brush of her awareness, not a dream, but her physical life force. _Here_.

He froze, head still inside his shirt, lungs stalled on an inhalation. Was he imagining things?

He wished that he was, but no... He felt her heartbeat, a rhythm growing stronger, getting closer. For a moment Ren panicked, certain he had summoned her with his fixation, or perhaps she had sneaked passed the shield of his thoughts, dug up his location, sifted through more of his secrets. He shivered and pulled the shirt back down around him, drawing on the Force for steadying strength. He waited another beat, just to be sure what he felt was real, and then began pulling his outer garments back on hastily.

Dressed once more, Ren stalled as he reached the door, gloved hand hesitating over his black helm. He frowned, strangely reluctant to put it on now. Withdrawing his hand, he straightened and turned, hitting the door latch smartly and departing without a backwards glance.

 

\-------------------------------

 

At the edge of the meteor field, the _Tau-Delta_ was poised as its crew surveyed their options. Rocky debris swirled chaotically in a massive grey kaleidoscope just a klick ahead, a simple but effective defense against intruders. Somewhere within, the leader of the First Order and his developing army of Force users were hidden. As was Kylo Ren.

Rey could feel him, this close. She had forgotten, in the excitement of arriving, that she would. Their connection across the Force was different from the ripple of his energy only a short distance away, so much more vivid in her senses. She stared out at the churning cloud, chewing on her lip and playing with the faded orange zipper tag on her borrowed flight jacket. She imagined finding the base, sneaking inside and sliding open a door to reveal a surprised Ren. Or worse, an _unsurprised_ Ren. Did he feel her presence too?

She was torn from her reverie by Poe’s call to order. She turned to rejoin the animated group of Resistance pilots gathered behind her, Poe in their midst. Even as a shorter man, he bore the confidence and gravity of a natural leader, and the other pilots quieted, listening.

“We’ve run the numbers on this one and it’s not pretty, folks. No way the _Tau-Delta_ can even get close to that cloud...but our A-Wing fighters have a shot, with the right pilots.” He grinned at the others, every one of them at the top of their flight class. Rey was still a little surprised to be included among them, but her skill with the _Millennium Falcon_ had spoken well for her. She had been assigned an A-Wing of her own, number 1411, before they even departed D’Qar.

“This meteor cloud is an old one,” Poe continued, “which means the rocks inside have played chicken and lost for a long time; they’ve been broken up into chunks small enough that most will bounce off our shields. But they also throw off all radar systems, so you won’t see the bigger ones coming until they’re right on top of you. We’ll have to keep an eye out, and warn each other when we can.”

Then his serious look melted into a sly smile.

“The good news is, if our radar is useless, so is the First Order’s. We have a fair chance of making it undetected to their base, if we can find it. That’s the real challenge.” He raised a data tablet flat on his palm and switched on the holo mode, projecting the meteor field in miniature. It was easier to see this way, the larger rocks standing out from the much smaller pieces, like shells half-submerged in sand.

“One of these is most likely to be the location of their base,” he said as he toggled a button, seven of the largest asteroids turning green.

“Anyone care to make a wager?” Wexley asked, glancing around. “First to find it wins a Corellian off everyone else?”

Jessika Pava rolled her eyes. “If I wanted to get drunk, I’d pick a better ale than that.”

“Don’t worry Jess, I’ll be doing all the drinking.” Wexley taunted back.

“Children!” Poe interrupted. “Can we focus on the task at hand, please?”

“What happens when we do find the base?” Rey asked. She was too keyed up to laugh now.

“Good question. It may be difficult to find, but that’s only half the battle. We have no idea what kind of secondary defenses this place has. There may be stormtroopers or even Force users to deal with, we just don’t know. Personally, I think it’s unlikely that security on the base is very high; the meteor field is likely to make them cocky. They won’t be expecting us. That said, go in with extreme caution, and stick to gathering intel.” He eyed Wexley hard. “I want you to fall back at any sign of combat. This is first and foremost a reconnaissance mission. We need to know what we’re dealing with before we can decide what to do next, so don’t try to play the hero.”

The pilots all nodded their agreement. It was hard not to trust in Poe’s steady confidence, and his matter-of-fact directions brooked no argument from any of them.

“All right everybody, suit up. May the Force be with you, and failing that, good flying and good luck.”

Rey was settling into the cramped pilot’s seat of the little craft not an hour later, helmet on, but targeting visor up. She trusted her own senses more than the computer for this one, especially after Poe’s speech. Clicking the buckle of her seat harness over her chest, she reached forward and began to toggle switches, bringing the ship to life with a pleasant hum.

She caught Poe’s gaze as she looked out over the docking port, and returned the thumbs up he gave her. Then it was time to go. Poe’s ship was the first to launch, the red and white of his A-wing flashing past her into space.

Watching her friend and mission leader go, Rey’s eyes snagged on another form across the flight deck. Finn had come to see them off. Budding pilot he may have been, Finn was still nowhere experienced enough to join the ranks heading into the meteor field. He was patient, though, ready to wield his knowledge of First Order base mechanics once this one was located.

She tried to wave, but Finn wasn’t paying attention to her. He stared out the bay door for a long moment after Poe had taken off. It made Rey’s chest feel tight, watching him. He had yet to learn the art of hiding his emotions, and here they shone through his face so intensely that Rey had to look away. She blinked hard against the sting in her eyes and triple checked her readout screens.

It didn’t take long for her turn to arrive, and all other thoughts were put off as she focused. Rey was fifth out the bay doors of the _Tau-Delta_ , the speed of the ship immediately pushing her back against her seat, stomach fluttering. For a brief moment all she felt was the thrill of flight, the freedom to just _go_ and keep going. The open void of space was beautiful, a smattering of stars ahead, bright against the black. Rey took a deep breath, savoring the view.

Then the meteor field filled her vision, reminding her of her mission, and sending her heart pounding for a host of other reasons.

Entering the field, she dodged the larger chunks of debris, letting the smaller ones bounce harmlessly off her hull. She unfolded her sense of the space around her, feeling through the Force for a clear path and weaving around obstacles as she headed deeper, toward the center. A glance at her radar almost made her laugh, the screen so choked with points of swirling light that it looked like a sandstorm.

She caught sight of one or two other A-Wings ahead of her, sweeping in and out of view, but the field was massive, and she lost sight of them as they spread out. She hoped they would be okay; even with the Force helping her, navigating this mess was a challenge. There was another obstacle developing for her too, only this one she couldn’t dodge with quick flying: Kylo Ren was getting closer. Her knuckles were white from gripping the controls as she held up her strongest shield against him, but he was much closer now, and she could feel him pressing into her mind. So much for the element of surprise, she realized.  

She continued to progress forward, noting how the meteoroids were growing in size the closer she got to the center of the cloud. Here, it was a little easier to see what was ahead of her, but more dangerous as well, now that the size of each rock was passing the threshold of what her ship could deflect.

Poe radioed in then, just as she was wondering how the other pilots were doing.

“This is Black Leader to Team, report your status, over.”

Wexley’s voice came next.“This is Blue-One checking in, hell of a traffic jam in here.”

“Blue-Three checking in. I’m finding it quite easy to get around,” Jessika said.

“This is Green-Five checking in,” Rey chimed, and then fell silent as she spotted something glinting ahead. She tuned out the rest of the check-ins, swooping to avoid an incoming rock, and when she next caught sight of the glittering object, she gasped, wrenching the yoke up to loop backwards in a panic, away from the enemy ship coming toward her.

She knew instantly that it was Kylo Ren. He had felt her approach through the Force, and obviously wasn’t going to wait around for her to arrive at the First Order Base. His black Upsilon-class command shuttle seemed improbably large to be navigating this field, but she didn’t pause to find out how he did it. Spinning over another large rock, this one nearly the same size as her own ship, Rey tried to think of a plan. She hoped she could outrun him with her smaller, nimble craft, but she wasn’t sure she could. Tilting back enough to gauge his distance from her, she nearly let go of the controls entirely in shock. Not far behind her and gaining, Ren was _Force-pushing_ meteorites out of his way, flying straight to her.

“ _Kriff_ ,” she swore.

She couldn’t shake him, she realized, not even if she stole his idea; his ship was faster than hers, in straight lines at least. She didn’t know what would happen if he caught her, but her team would likely be in even greater danger then. She had to draw him away, to give the others a chance to complete the mission.  

Thinking quickly, Rey felt through the Force for the nearest exit from the cloud. She maneuvered near as many large asteroids as possible on her way out, hoping the effort to move them would slow Ren down. Even still, by the time she broke into open space, he was nearly upon her.

She skated around the edge of the cloud, looking for the next step in her improvised plan, when suddenly her ship’s controls locked up. She couldn’t steer anymore, and the whole A-Wing was moving sideways, pulled by some outside power. At first, she thought Kylo Ren had managed to ensnare her with the Force, but as she strained to look behind her, she saw his ship was moving sideways as well, caught in the same trap. Twisting around, she finally spotted it: an MC80 cruiser, hovering on the edge of her blind spot. She and Ren were stuck in a kriffing _tractor beam_. Rey surprised herself with the depth of colorful language she was capable of recalling at the moment.

“This is Green-Five, calling Black Leader, do you read me?” Dead static came back over the radio, and Rey swore again. They were jamming her too.

She felt for her saber, checking that it was still clipped to her hip. The MC80 loomed closer, and Rey closed her eyes, drawing on the Force. She had been taken captive before and escaped; she was pretty sure she could do it again. She undid her harness and stretched as much as she could, trying to limber up in the limited room onboard before she went to meet whoever had halted her. If they thought she would give up without a fight, they were in for a surprise.

Her ship and Ren’s both entered the wide hangar at the same time, setting down in the middle of an empty bay. There was absolutely no one around, as far as she could see. She waited a tense minute, then five, then ten, trying her ship controls again and again. Finally, when they still wouldn’t respond and she grew tired of sitting in silence, she popped the hatch cautiously, waiting to see if someone would try to shoot her. Yet no shot came, and she couldn’t spot anything moving.

“Get back inside your ship,” came an angry hiss. Rey turned, but couldn’t see Kylo Ren without uncovering more of her head into open air.

“Nobody’s shooting at us,” Rey called back softly, both a statement and a question in her voice.

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe, now close the damn canopy!”

But before Rey could follow his advice or argue further, she felt a wave of dizziness overcome her, and she gripped the edge of the hatch for balance, shaking her head. Too late, she realized her mistake, the invisible, treacherous gas knocking her unconscious in seconds.

 

\-------------------------------

 

When Rey came to, she couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Her head throbbed dully, mouth so dry she thought for a fleeting moment that she must be back on Jakku, until the chill registered on her skin. Her back ached against a cold floor, muscles stiff, but the drug was starting to wear off. Slowly, her senses came back online. She smelled rust and oil, familiar ship smells, comforting to the scavenger in Rey. It made her feel brave enough to crack an eyelid.  
  
The blur of shadows above her was much closer than she expected, and she blinked, confused. Then, in the moment her vision cleared, her whole body came awake, veins flooded with adrenaline. Kylo Ren was leaning over her, dark eyes inches from hers.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sooo sorry this took forever to write, stupid real life got in the way, but have no fear, I am chugging along as fast I can manage! Forgive me for the cliffhanger, darlings, I just had to cut it off here so I could give you something to read while I write the chapter you've all been waiting for ;) Let me know with your comments and kudos if you like where this going! I am having a ton of fun and I hope you are too! Thanks as always to my dear friend and Beta bluebellbeau XOXO


	6. Allies and Altitude

  


Ren awakened in a dimly lit room that might generously be termed a “cell”, but was more likely a storage closet. From his vantage point on the floor, he could see a dirty blanket beneath him and a bucket in the corner; whether the bucket counted as an amenity, he couldn’t guess, but he would not be desperate enough to investigate it for some time. The walls were dark, cold metal on all sides, maybe twice his length across but narrow, without a direct light source or window. Only a glaring bar of orange shone under the door frame.Through a fog of dizzy, achy sleepiness, he had pushed himself to sit up and assess the room further.

It was like a cold splash of water to realized he was not alone.

In a rush, the events of the past few hours came back to him: his pursuit of the girl, the stall of his gaining ship, halted before he could reach her, and then the panic that had filled him when he saw her pop the canopy of her A-Wing, exposing herself to whatever dangers might be waiting. He had been so angry at her idiocy, he had done the next worse thing and cracked his own hatch to tell her off.

Now the girl lay on the other side of the room, still out cold, her feet not far from his. This was her fault, he brooded, but he turned the knife of anger in on himself, furious that his own distraction had allowed him to be captured. Taking inventory was short work. Their weapons were gone, of course: he had felt the absence of his saber’s weight as soon as he sat up. Glaring in the dark through the last dregs of his wooziness, Ren found his eyes drawn to her shape in the shadows. Abruptly, he was aware of her physical presence, no longer a vision or dream. He felt the jarring realization that this was the closest they’d been since he pressed his blade to hers in the snow, months ago. She hadn’t known her own strength, then... or her darkness. He wondered if she knew it now.

He could still remember the weight of her slack form in his arms as he carried her aboard his shuttle on Takodana. Now, as then, her energy was brilliant, almost blinding, even in sleep. Both darkness and light pulsed around her, a fascinating, impossible contradiction. It was very different from the more subtle impression of her mind through the Force, yet there had always been an underlying reflection of that raw power he couldn’t look away from. He reached out to touch her, drawn to prove that she was as real as the cake he could still taste from this morning, but stopped himself, feeling strange and uneasy.

 _What did they drug me with_?, he wondered. He was not acting himself, and assumed the lingering effects of whatever backworld soporific he’d inhaled were to blame.  

He let his hand fall to the metal floor and rest there, glad of the sobering chill. Shifting away from the girl, Ren tried to gather himself and reestablish his mental shields, but her aura was still distractingly vivid.

Running his hands through his disheveled hair, he focused on checking himself for further injuries, stretching his limbs. His muscles were stiff but undamaged, bones intact. Only a lingering headache attested to his weakness, and he cursed himself for leaving his helmet behind. Its air filters would have stalled any poison, saving him from capture. He had been entirely reckless today, and Snoke would punish him for this mistake, unless he could escape and return with the girl, perhaps.

He was trying to picture this outcome, struggling to imagine the girl submissive before the Supreme Leader, when he heard a soft groan. As petite as she was, it didn’t surprise him that she was more affected by the gas than he, but now that she appeared to be waking, he felt caught in the act, as if he was intruding. He sat frozen, watching her, waiting long minutes, but she didn’t stir. Feeling through the Force for her awareness, he found only fuzziness. Perhaps the drugs had done more damage than he guessed. She was quite small, and had been exposed to the gas for longer.

Cautiously, quietly, he moved closer, peering through the dim light to make out her face, check her breathing. She didn’t budge or make a sound. He could detect her slow pulse through the Force, but felt a twinge of alarm in his chest when he tapped her arm and got no response. He leaned over her, looking for head injuries or other signs of distress.

Without warning, her eyes flashed open, and for a moment, they stared at one another, each too surprised to move. Then a knee came crashing up into the back of Ren’s skull, and he rolled, body slamming into the closest metal wall as he cradled his head.

 

\-------------------------------

 

Rey was up on her knees in a defensive pose before her mind could process what had happened. She was in a dark, cramped room, apparently taken prisoner, and Kylo Ren was a mere few feet from her. Well, didn’t this feel familiar?

Squashing her peevish thoughts, she relaxed back on to her haunches, sighing. Her mind still felt a little tangled, but she was rapidly adjusting to the situation. Her saber was missing from its place on her belt, and her arch nemesis was still curled into a ball, clutching his head. She took the time to consider how she felt about having bashed her knee into him without warning: Rey could not deny empathy for the broken boy he had been, tormented by misplaced guilt, and loneliness she could well relate to. She also thought of the dream-beast he had slayed in her defense, and the stricken look he’d worn when she mentioned his mother. How much could she really blame him for?

Then she remembered watching Han reach out to touch his son’s face before falling into darkness, and the months of mental bombardment she’d recently endured; she decided she felt okay about a little head-bashing.

The room was quiet. No sound passed beneath the door as Rey listened, waiting for Ren to recover. Glancing around at their cozy new quarters, she wondered if she might owe him another blow to the head for getting them into this mess. True, she had been the one to open her ship to the poisonous air, but she wouldn’t have left the safety of the meteor field in the first place if he hadn’t hounded her out of it. What would he have done with her if he caught her, anyway? She felt a flare of righteous anger, hot in her veins, and hoped he had a headache for days.

Slowly, Ren sat up again, rubbing gently over the bump now forming beneath his scalp. He pushed the hair out of his face and glared at Rey, looking more petulant than intimidating. The light was barely enough to see by, but as her eyes focused in the dimness, she could make out the diagonal scar bisecting his face, and the spite went out of her. In all the visions and dreams they’d shared, he hadn’t had a scar. She had thought he’d erased it with bacta. Apparently not.

“Sorry,” she offered, not entirely sure which part she was apologizing for.

“Are you?” he challenged. “So that was an accidental kick to the head? Or do you always bludgeon people to death as soon as you wake up?”

“Only when they chase me into the arms of space pirates and then hover over me threateningly while I’m unconscious,” she retorted.

“I was trying to check your vitals-” he hissed through his teeth, and then stopped, breathing deeply.

They lulled into an awkward silence, each struggling to cool their tempers.

“How long were we out?” Rey asked, working to be calmer.

Ren closed his eyes for a moment, and she felt the shiver of his reach in the Force, feeling stupid for not checking herself. “Almost an entire sun-cycle, I think,” he said.

“ _What?_ What kind of drugs did they give us?”

He snorted, as if that were funny, but his weary expression didn’t change.  
  
“It also feels like we’ve moved quite a ways away from Metis-” he glanced at her. “From the meteor cloud.”

Furrowing her brow, Rey shut her eyes, verifying his words. It took much longer than she expected to find Finn’s energy in the Force, anchored on the _Tau-Delta_. Alarmed, she came back to herself and the little room to find Ren still staring at her.

“Well, they haven’t killed us. Any ideas why?” she asked. Currently, her credits were on intended slavery or ransom.

Instead of answering, he sat up further and stretched a hand in the air as if reaching for something. Rey felt his intent, the magnetic pull for knowledge, and felt a prickle of apprehension, but it wasn’t directed at her this time. Through the metal walls of the cell, down hallways and into other rooms, he felt for the minds of their captors. A moment of absolute silence filled the air.

Then Ren swore softly.

“What?” Rey asked, her voice over-loud in the cramped room.

“Hutts,” he said, grimacing at the same time she did.

Rey hated Hutts. They were hard bargainers, cheap and manipulative if you weren’t careful. They would sell their own mothers for a bounty, and the ones she had dealt with on Jakku tended toward lecherous behavior. They were also notoriously strong against Force-suggestion, or so they liked to tell anyone listening. Of all the unpleasant circumstances Rey might have imagined, Hutt pirates were among the worst.

“Force preserve us,” she groaned, tilting her head back. This would not be the easy escape she had managed on the Starkiller Base. She choked on a near-hysterical laugh.

When she lowered her face, Ren was quirking an eyebrow at her.

“It takes a special kind of hell to make you wish for stormtroopers and Death Stars, you know?”

His lips twitched. “Are you any good at dancing? I hear the Hutts like that sort of thing. Maybe you can distract them while I find an escape route.”

She threw the bucket at him. He was thankful beyond words that it was empty.

Sometime later, Rey dozed off again, curled up on her side. The long day had indeed caught up with her, and it felt like only moments passed before a loud clang startled her awake. She glanced to her right and saw Ren, still in his own corner, looking like he hadn’t moved an inch. Curiously, he was not even sitting on the sole blanket, as if the cold didn’t bother him. She shivered, half a thought toward stealing it later. He might not be cold, but her flight suit was thin, and she was still too used to warmer climates.

Attention pulled to the scraping sound of the door, she watched as it slid open an inch, revealing a glimpse of a greasy R5 droid. Before she could form a plan, maybe rush the opening, the droid shoved two ration bars and a canteen into the room and slammed the door. She could hear it titering in Binary as it rolled away, laughing at them.

Ren remained seated, barely looking up when Rey had surged to her feet, her adrenaline pumping without fight or flight to use it on. She slumped back to the floor.

“The best chance for escape will be when we’re transfered off this ship. I’d suggest you save your energy until then.”

She huffed back against the wall, crossing her arms.

“Could you pick up _anything_ from the crew? Any details that might be helpful?” She asked, beyond caring that the breach of a sentient mind was a moral quandary, and a talent of the Dark side.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t read where we’re going, but I could tell they’re pretty smug about capturing both of us. I’m not sure if they know who or what we are, though. It’s like trying to see through fog.”

Rey almost asked him how he did it, curious if she might be able to find out more with her particular strengths, but she stopped herself. Luke had warned her about the temptations of the Dark side. Was curiosity a temptation? She didn’t know, but perhaps it was better to be cautious.

Instead of replying, she reached for the ration bar closest to her and tore into it, the near-flavorless chalky substance reminding her of home, or at least, the place she had called home for years. She was too hungry to care about flavor now, another familiar feeling. She sunk her teeth deeply into the food and ripped a chunk into her mouth. Across from her, Ren was looking at her a little like he’d never seen her before.

“What?” she said around a mouthful. “I haven’t eaten in more than a cycle.”

Ren’s pale face went a little pink, and he picked up his own rations without meeting her eyes again. The last thing he’d eaten was a Kessinnamon cake, but he wasn’t about to bring that up. It made him feel...queasy? Uncomfortable? Something off, when he thought about it in front of her.

They ate their meal in relative quiet, each lost in their own thoughts. As Rey stuffed the last dry clump of nutrient compound into her mouth, she scanned the dark floor for the canteen, only to see it floating into Ren’s hands. _Show off_ , she thought.

She watched him take a deep swig impatiently, clearing her throat to remind him that she needed water too. His eyes, tired and bored a moment ago, sparked with something as he swallowed a final mouthful. He recapped the container and tossed it to her in a flash, but she had good instincts for mischief, and was ready; a foot away from her face, she stopped the sloshing container, freezing it in mid-air with the Force before it could hit her. Smirking like a cat, she twirled a finger, the gesture directing the Force to deftly unscrew the top. Then she plucked the open jug out of the air and took a swig. The water had a metallic taste, but she of all people knew how to appreciate the gift of hydration.

Ren’s eyes were still on her when she finished drinking. He didn’t seem surprised or annoyed with her little display; in fact, he almost looked proud of her. Even in the dark, chilly room, she saw unexpected warmth in his gaze. She looked back, a question in her eyes, until a smile flickered across his lips, the first one she’d really seen from him. It transformed his face, softening his eyes and offering a hint of the charming man he might have been, if things were different. _He looked like Han._

Shifting away, he laid down on his side without another word, drawing his cloak around him.

Feeling decidedly perplexed, Rey did the same. She tried to drift off again, but the chill kept her awake, shuddering against the metal floor. She started to sit up to look for the blanket, and jumped in her own skin when she felt the coarse material settling over her from above. Of the two Force users in the room, she hadn’t been the one to summon it.

Lifting her head, she sought Ren’s form in the darkness, but he hadn’t moved. She stared hard for a moment, wondering if she was imaging that tiny thread of Light she felt swirling through the room. She didn’t like to entertain false hope; but the sense of it passed, and she laid her head back down on the pillow of her arm, pulling the blanket tighter. She already felt warmer.

 

As it turned out, they never got the chance to escape during transfer.

The next time Rey woke up, she was disoriented all over again, expecting darkness in a small space and finding herself instead bathed in light within a roughly carved stone cell- a real one this time, with an alcove one might call a bed or bench, and a grate in the corner with a working tap above. She was also alone.

Feeling the same headache and wooziness as before was confirmation enough that their Hutt captors had chosen to drug them rather than risk escape. _So they’re_ smart _, smug bastards,_ she thought. The Hutts had played it safe; either they knew Kylo Ren and Rey were Force-users, or they were severely paranoid.

Leveraging herself off the dusty floor, she squinted, confused by the intense light in the room. Why on earth would they waste the power-? Raising a hand to her eyes, she glanced up, and felt her stomach flutter. There was no roof on her cell. Instead, bright sunlight beamed down, and a view of a sheer cliff stretched up on one side. Odd chunks of rock jutted out here and there, crudely carved, and with a jolt, Rey realized they were shaped similarly to her own cell, perhaps holding other prisoners. Shaking her clouded head, she eyed them critically, already looking for a way out. The scattered protrusions of stone were spaced too far apart for climbing between, and even the most sure-footed creature would have trouble finding hand and foot holds in the unnaturally smooth cliff wall.

Looking behind her, Rey found the only door, facing into the cliff. She pushed herself onto her wobbly feet and began searching the rest of the room, hands sliding over the walls, seeking a grip, but the cell was curved up, rounded on all sides. It was too high to reach the top, even when she tried standing on the bench. Where could she go, even if she found a way to climb up? She couldn’t see anything but the glimpse of wall and sky above.

Plunging herself into the Force faster than she ever had before, Rey followed the lines of energy that defined the world around her. Behind her eyes, she saw how the cliff stretched down thousands of feet below her, dotted with cells as far as she could see, many of them occupied with other creatures. There would be no bare-handed climbing here, even for a nimble scavenger girl.

The door, then. She turned her senses into the rock, passing through a maze of hallways, and coming out into the lair of the Hutts, swathed in pipe smoke and splashed with wine. Music and loud celebration buzzed through the air, and Rey flinched at the assault, temples pounding. Searching beyond them, she saw a few gates leading to different ship hangars or private quarters, all well-guarded with both battle droids and Mustafarian sentries.

“Kriff,” she said tiredly, shoulders slumping. The Hutts had done a bang up job of trapping her and Ren, that was for sure. Her head shot up suddenly- _Ren_ -

 _“I’m here, in the cell below yours,”_ came his voice in her head, a clipped growl. She let out a breath, more relieved than she wanted to admit. Being with the Resistance had spoiled her; after months of having friends around her all the time, she didn’t like to think about being alone again.

 _Not_ that Kylo Ren was a friend. She wasn’t even sure if she could call him an ally, but still… she felt immediately calmer for having heard him. She hoped he couldn’t read that through their connection.

 _“Status?”_ she asked.

 _“I’m trapped, same as you,”_ he said, irritation obvious in his tone.

 _“All right,”_ Rey said slowly, trying to remain calm in the onslaught of his anger, hitting her full-force over their connection. He wasn’t holding anything back, and she staggered under the wave of emotion. _“Can you see anything that could help, any potential ways out?”_

She felt his irritation spike before he answered. _“I wouldn’t be trapped still, if I did. I can’t reach the top of my cell, and I haven’t seen a route to the hangar that doesn’t involve too many opponents for us to take without weapons. Although it might be worth the inevitable death if we can slaughter a few on the way out. I’d like to crush their fraking skulls...”_

Ren’s frustration bleed into her own; it was heady, the way he gave in completely to what he felt, the power Rey could taste across their link. She was also angry, and knew the strength she’d gained from that anger, the way the Force had flowed through her. His growing ire called out to her own. She looked up into the sky and grasped for the training she could remember.

Taking a deep breath, she turned away from the dark emotions and sought the life force around her, the balance she had been taught to find. Slowly, the calm cleared her mind, allowing room to think. She savored the space, feeling in control again. Then, without much forethought, she dropped all her shields as she widened her connection with Ren and pushed the feeling toward him as hard as she could.

His mounting fury was snuffed out like a candle.

She heard him gasp through his own ears, and he sat down hard on the stone bench. She saw through his eyes too, as he joined her in looking at the sky. Balance hung between them, tranquil and immense.

 _“What_ are _you?”_ he asked, even his mental tone fatigued now.

 _“Pragmatic,”_ she answered. _“A suicide mission does neither of us any good, and if your battle rage gets you killed I have even less chance of escaping. Stop trying to kill everyone and_ help me think _.”_

She felt him nod, and then he leaned back, stretched out across the bench with his too-long legs hanging off, overcome with weariness. He breathed raggedly for a moment, and then spoke again.

 _“I never killed any children,”_ he said quietly, out of nowhere. She felt his own surprise at the admission, mirroring hers. _“You- remember when you told me not to kill anymore of them? But- I never did.”_

 _“But the academy-”_ she began.

 _“I couldn’t- I...I led the Knights in when I knew Skywalker would be gone, but when the fighting began, I took on the adults, like it was beneath me to attack younglings... but I_ knew _those kids. It wasn’t beneath me, it was- I wasn’t strong enough.”_

They remembered, together, that day in the rain, perspectives mixing over their bond.

 _“There are different kinds of strength,”_ Rey said at last.

They stayed silent over their connection for a long time after that, until, surprisingly, they each fell back asleep.

 

\-------------------------------

 

_“So, if one of us Force-pushes the next droid or Hutt or whatever shows up when they feed us, he or she can get out, make it to the other’s cell, and let them out. It should work.”_

Ren pinched the bridge of his scared nose, feeling tension build beneath his skull. This was the second plan they had mulled over for the third time, and he absolutely hated it, but Rey chattered on, chipper as an ewok even after hours of circling the same issues. He hadn’t had much to offer in return, only able to think of methods that might have worked if _this_ or _that_ were true. Presently, he regretted leaving his apprenticeship with Skywalker before learning more about Force-jumping, but it hadn’t seemed like much of a vital skill at the time.

 _“Are you listening to me?”_ Rey asked, not for the first time.

 _“More than you’re listening to me,”_ he replied. _“We’ve already been through this; we can’t get past the guards near the hangar without weapons, and those are also under guard.”_

He was watching the first stars appear in the clear sky above, heralding the second night of their captivity on this planet. The days were shorter here than a standard sun-cycle, but Ren felt like he’d been trapped for several millennia. He could feel the intention from their captors, a gleeful malice, and knew whatever they planned for their prisoners wouldn’t be pleasant.The Hutts hadn’t stopped celebrating since they arrived, but the vague cloud of sadistic hunger was growing stronger. He and the girl were running out of time to form a viable plan.  

_“Well I’ve come up with three ideas and you’ve shot down every one, so it’s your fregging turn: you think of something.”_

The girl’s aggravated inflection made him smile, reminding him of their old games: the way he used to wind her up, her embarrassment scaldingly hot across their link… and sometimes, in spite of herself, a flicker of arousal. It had been gratifying to Ren in more ways than one. He could still picture her laid out before him in his dream, that first time, could still taste her on his lips.

Too late, he remembered their unfiltered connection, her silent shock registering for him only as it turned to stinging ferocity. In an instant, their bond went dead. She had thrown every shield possible between them, leaving him truly alone.

Ren didn’t remember standing up, but found himself marching from wall to wall of the room, beyond annoyed at his own petty distraction. He was more disciplined than that, to be thinking about a girl when their time was so precious. He was a Knight of Ren, not some lust-filled boy, following his cock over his brain. He wasn’t some roguish, impulsive flirt- he _wasn’t_ _his father_.

Ren’s pain echoed back to him at the thought: anger and loss and dread and wrath, surging through him, with nowhere to go. He reached for his saber before remembering that it was gone, taken from him, the weapon he had built himself. It only made him angrier, and he spun within the room, needing to unleash destruction, even if it was on himself. Maybe especially on himself. He wanted to break something, but all he had was his body; that, and the rock walls surrounding him.

 

\-------------------------------

 

Rey was still reeling from the sudden shift in emotions, both hers and Kylo Ren’s. One moment she had been cross and tired, stuck thinking herself in circles while Ren poked holes in all her ideas, and the next- she felt the flush in her cheeks again, the righteous anger that he would go back to taunting her rather than be useful. They were both trapped here, and maybe if they worked together they could get out. Yet he had been absolutely zero help.

She didn’t even know where his erotic thoughts had stemmed from, only that an image of her, naked and inviting beneath him, flowed straight from his mind into hers. She shivered, trying to scrub it from her memory, scalp tingling. Her shield was up between them now, but she was at a loss for what to do next. They would have a better chance if they worked together, no doubt. She just didn’t know how to face him.

Standing in the middle of her cell, she sucked in a deep breath, tasting dust. She wished for a moment that she could escape now, leaving Kylo Ren to fend for himself, if he was going to be so uncooperative. Yet something told Rey that no amount of hiding would do her good; she had nowhere to go, and the passage of each minute filled her with a growing anxiety. Any moment could be their last.

Dreading another attack, or gloating, or worse, she cautiously let down her shields.

In an instant, Ren’s emotions spilled over, out of control. She felt him pacing like a caged animal, all trace of composure lost. He was back to the wild, furious man from yesterday. Maybe worse, this time. Definitely worse, she felt, the more she opened their connection.

Ren was fuming to himself, oblivious to her now. She could feel his anger, and was surprised to recognize that it was directed inward, at himself. She watched almost curiously as his tirade built, until he twisted around, pulling his arm back to swing a fist at the wall. With a jolt, Rey cried out, her voice heavy with the Force.

_“Stop.”_

It wasn’t just her voice that commanded him to be still. Her will was there in front of him, wrapping around his arm, bidding his energy to halt before he smashed his knuckles into stone. Like a paused holo, his whole body froze in place.

The idea came to both of them simultaneously. Or maybe one of them thought of it, and it flooded over their connection into the mind of the other. Rey couldn’t tell, too stunned by the wild, impossible concept she was picturing with Ren.

 

\-------------------------------

 

It took them four hours of practicing before they could lift each other _and_ safely halt gravity mid-drop. At least, “safely” from short heights, within their cells. The true test was yet to come.

Ren had imagined training this powerful Force-sensitive girl, but never in such dire circumstances as this. He worried that she was too new at manipulating objects for this escape plan to really work, quick study though she was. She had good senses for precision in the Force, but it took all her concentration not to drop him when in the air herself. He had the bruises to prove it, his back aching from one hard landing after another. She had also wasted valuable time stuck on why they couldn’t just lift themselves, unsatisfied with the logic that it was harder to move oneself in the Force than surrounding objects- or people, in this case. Ren nearly snapped at her that he wouldn’t stick around otherwise, but the barb died on his tongue. Neither of them could do this on their own. Their only choice was to practice together until they got it.

At dawn, they agreed to take a break. The pair had been working too long, both worn out and starting to bicker more than practice. They didn’t dare sleep, not knowing if another drug-laden transfer was coming; but there was water, and the comfort of the sun coming up, and a respite from their hurried training.

Ren cupped a drink in his hands, the tap spitting out cloudy, sulphurous water that he sniffed at before gulping. Absently probing the corridors with the Force for the hundredth time, he found the Hutt’s lair unsettlingly quiet. An hour ago they had still been revelling- or had it been longer since he last checked? He couldn’t remember, but something was happening: he could sense it. He was about to comment to Rey when a dawning urgency hit him, and in the next moment, he felt the presence of two Hutt pirates heading toward his cell.

 _“Time to go,”_ Rey said before he could.

 _“Are you sure you can do this?”_ he asked, suddenly hesitant to trust Skywalker’s apprentice _and_ a Resistance member not to drop him, on purpose or otherwise.

 _“I work best under pressure,”_ she assured him, and already he felt her energy lifting him off the stone floor.

 _“May the Force be with you,”_ he thought, the old phrase feeling awkward, but he had never meant it more.

 _“Back at you. Don’t drop me,”_ she replied, and then he felt her concentration zeroing in, gravity falling away as he floated over the top of the cell. He kept his eyes determinedly pointed at the cliff wall rather than down, feeling exposed as the breeze tugged at his hair and clothing.

It was his turn next, and he reached through the Force for her shape, following the lines of  life around her body, coaxing them to defy physics. She rose out of her cell a moment behind him, and he felt the tremor as she adjusted, dropping him just a little before they were both clear of their cells. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat.

Below Ren, the door to his prison flung open and the fleshy figure of a Hutt shuffled forward, yelling in Huttese. He carried a blaster, and Ren was barely flung fast enough to the left to dodge the incoming shots as he was spotted. Jerked downward, he held firmly to his Force grip of the girl, moving her gently, even as he felt himself entering free-fall. He had no choice but to trust her now.

Rey caught him before he got too far, and they continued a more controlled descent along the wall, passing cell after cell, with the fading sound of Huttese curses above them.

It was a long way down. Ren blocked out everything but the pull of gravity and the spark of Rey’s lifeforce, barely conscious of his own movement after the first harrowing minutes. He didn’t need to look down, aware of the ground slowly getting closer, but he felt the mist against his face when  they finally passed through the highest trees at the base of the cliff, dropping several hundred more feet before solid earth met his boots. It startled him enough to break his concentration, and Rey yelped as she fell from above, gasping for breath when he caught her again only ten feet from the mossy forest floor.

She looked ready to kill him as he dropped her the rest of the way just a little too quickly, into a pile of leaves, but he hadn’t even done it on purpose this time. Ren was so amazed that their plan had worked, so pleasantly surprised to be in one piece, that he was nearly laughing, dizzy with relief as he walked over to offer her a hand. She glared up at him, leaves sticking to her hair, and he couldn’t help it: laughter bubbled up out of him, bright and familiar and foreign all at once, like a place he used to live but had forgotten.

Rey shut her eyes, pressing her lips together, but the corners of her mouth were curling up, and she gave in to a grin before yanking hard on his hand, pulling herself to her feet.  He squeezed her hand in return before letting go, and smiled wider to see her flush slightly.

“Now what, laser brain?” She said, trying to sound cross and failing.

“Now we walk, scavenger. Maybe you can scavenger us a ship.”

With one last look at the cliff above, stretched beyond sight into the clouds, Ren turned and followed her as she sauntered into the forest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this has been one hell of a mountain to climb... but you can feel it, right? In the eternal words of Mrs. Potts, "There's something there that wasn't there before." ;)
> 
> I hope you don't hate me for withholding the smut up to now! I swear I'm not doing it on purpose, these crazy kids just won't do anything until they're good and ready! I definitely had fun with this chapter regardless, and I hope you did too! Let me know what you think with comments and kudos. Your support means so much to me, especially for those of you who have stuck around even when the fluff and smut have taken a backseat to heaps of character development. You have my solemn vow for a huge payoff, and SOON!
> 
> As always, this chapter would have been impossible without my beta bluebellbeau <3


	7. Water and Warfare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren! she shouted through the Force, but there was no answering flicker of awareness.
> 
> The mercenary gestured with his blaster and chirped at her in an unfamiliar language, but his intent was clear: Move. When Rey didn’t react fast enough, he jammed his blaster into her ribs with adequate force to bruise, and she reluctantly turned around to find the packed corridor clearing out. One of the Hutts stood at the far end of it, another weapon trained on her. He smiled, greasy lips pulled back, and his dark, slimy tongue slithered out to wet them. Rey felt her stomach twist. The Force stretched out around her, touching hundreds of lives, but not a one was interested in helping. She gave one last attempt to reach Ren, mentally shouting into the void, to no avail. He could be in hyperspace by now. There was no one coming back for her this time.

 

If someone had told Rey a week ago that she would be trekking through the woods of an unknown planet, side by side with Kylo Ren and totally unarmed, she would have bet against those odds with a month’s worth of rations-- and she wasn’t the betting type.

As it turned out, she would have lost.

Picking their way over mossy rocks, slippery inclines, and hidden roots, they were still leagues from the cliff by midday. Hopefully, their captors were just as far away, but they stayed quiet and alert for hours on end anyway, listening for pursuing vehicles. Rey found the challenging hike a pleasant distraction from contemplating the bizarre turn of events in her life, and her concern for her friends back on the _Tau-Delta_. She was buzzing with unanswered questions: Had they found Snoke’s base? Did they know she was alive? What would happen once she and Ren found a ship?

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, his face streaked with dirt and looking decidedly too warm in his dark ensemble under the humid heat of day, but he seemed determined not to take any of it off. _Suit yourself,_ Rey had thought, as she stopped to zip the front of her flight uniform open and pull her arms out of the protective, stifling sleeves. The air of this planet was almost steamy, and she imagined it condensing in her lungs, an unpleasant stickiness within as much as outside her. She zipped the front of her suit back up a bit and tied the arms around her chest, enjoying the freedom, her skin cooling a little in the breeze. Ren had raised an eyebrow at her, impatient to keep moving, but the moment’s stop was well-worth it to Rey. She had told him to leave her and let her catch up, if he was so worried about the Hutts, but he had crossed his arms and waited, if gracelessly.

Rey smiled to herself as she hiked after him, feeling like she was in on a secret: Kylo Ren was sort of a bastard, but a bastard you could sort of count on. She didn’t know what to do with the flare of warmth in her chest that followed, so she allowed it for now. Leia had been right, she realized. For all his issues with his past, and his terrible actions on the Starkiller base, there was still the core of a good person within him; the Light hadn’t left him yet. She wondered what might happen if she could make him see that.

It was hours later when they stopped again, this time without a choice. Rey wiped sweat from her brow and stared down into the swirling, dark river blocking their way, her heart pounding against her ribcage. She couldn’t tell if that was more from excitement or fear. Water meant survival to her, a lesson burned through her more deeply than her own name, even now. But in the months she had spent becoming used to her new life, drinking as much as she wanted and even coming to terms with the shocking act of _showering_ in clean water, she had never gone _into_ any ocean, lake or pool. The wide, slow passage of water seemed to deepen as she watched it, both an invitation and a threat.

Ren had no such qualms, surprising her with his sudden willingness to disrobe. He stripped off his boots at the river’s edge, not even glancing at her as his cloak followed. Rey felt her face warm, entirely out of her element. She had thought-- or fought-- her way out of every other obstacle; this should be no different. She grit her teeth and cleared her throat. Ren tossed her a look, not even slowing down as he went to work on his belt.

“Problem?” He asked, his tall frame appearing piece by piece as his dark clothes fell to the ground. His exposed skin was so pale, she could see every freckle from where she stood.

“We’re going in?” she asked, unable to look him in the eyes. She focused on peeling off a smear of dried mud on her wrist.

“The nearest outpost is beyond this river, you felt it yourself. Another day of walking maybe, and we’ll be there,” he said.

“Can’t we just float each other across, like before?” she pressed.

He frowned, shoulders slumping a bit in fatigue, the lines of his face creased with annoyance. 

“We’ve been walking all day,” he said with a sigh, pulling his shirt over his head. “It takes a lot more energy and focus than either of us has right now. Frankly, I’m amazed we did it the first time. At best, one or both of us would probably end up in the river if we tried again; might as well plan ahead and keep most of our clothes dry.” He started on the fastenings of his trousers.

“I can’t swim.” Rey said, lifting her chin up. She refused to feel embarrassed. It wasn’t her fault she has grown up in a desert wasteland. If anything, it was _his_ , actually.

Ren paused finally, his hand going still. “Ah. Right.” He glanced back at the water and narrowed his eyes. “Well, there is one thing we could try,” he said, swinging back around to look at her. “We don’t have time to teach you how to swim, the Hutts could be right behind us... but you aren’t going to like the alternative.”

Rey felt his intentions flash between them, and took an involuntary step back.

“I’m not a child,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “But you’re nearly as small as one. I bet you weigh next to nothing.”

Rey refused to give in to the urge to straighten her spine or puff out her chest. She was trying to think of a good reason to halt this line of thought, but Ren continued.

“The river is shallow enough for me to wade through it; _your_ feet won’t reach the bottom. But on my shoulders, you could carry our clothes. _And_ you’d hardly even get wet.”

The long day of hiking through unfamiliar terrain on an empty stomach was clearly catching up to Rey. She couldn’t find the line of reasoning she was looking for to turn him down, and her face felt much too warm. She frowned, but her lips couldn’t form an argument. All she could do was nod. She had trusted him so far; it seemed pointless to balk at this smaller cooperation. Ren gave her a weary smile in return, staring right at her as he dropped his trousers.

Rey rolled her eyes. Turning to face the river, she unzipped her flight suit, ignoring the sense of Ren’s gaze on her as she pulled off her boots and stepped out of the outfit. She threw her shoes into the space her body had occupied and zipped the front up after them. The last thing she needed was to drop a shoe in the river.

Shivering more from a sense of vulnerability than the temperature, Rey’s skin tingled, exposed save for her small pair of elastic shorts and breast band. She felt Ren’s presence on her left, heard the rustle of fabric and turned to watch him tie his cloak into a pack on the ground.

He was also bare, stripped down to a pair of shorts, the black fabric stark against his gangly white legs. She wondered when they had last seen the sun, and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from chuckling. He was so much less intimidating like this, almost comical in fact. But she had seen his bare skin before, in visions and dreams; it would be another thing entirely to touch him in this state.

Rey’s sense of humor evaporated, and she swallowed dryly, her eyes rising to meet his. He was staring at her, still crouched low, and looking suddenly about as unsure as she felt. It calmed her down just a little.

She stepped forward, hyper-aware of the movement of air against her body, and slipped her arm through a loop in the improvised pack Ren had crafted. It came to rest in the crook of her arm, atop her own clothes. When she straightened and looked down at him once more, Ren seemed to recall himself. He twisted around on his haunches, offering the broad expanse of his pale, freckled shoulders.

“Come on, it’s going to get dark soon.” His voice was carefully neutral, but lower than usual.

Rey hesitated half a moment, steeling herself, and then gently placed a hand on his shoulder. His skin was hot beneath her fingers, almost feverish, and a detached part of her mind worried about heat stroke; but his breathing was steady, skin void of any sickly flush. She leaned her weight into him, swinging a leg over each shoulder, and adjusted her grip around his neck as she settled into a nearly-comfortable seat. His hands automatically came up to grip her ankles, grounding her.

“Okay?” she asked him.

“Fine,” he replied in the same flat tone. He stood up slowly, adjusting his balance.

Rey took a moment to enjoy the new perspective, amazed at how far away the ground seemed. She couldn’t remember ever being carried on someone’s shoulders before. The world appeared a little smaller, easier to deal with from this height. Then her eyes settled back on the river, and her wonder twisted into nerves in her stomach.

“Don’t drop me,” she said, and belatedly realized the phrase felt familiar, an echo of their miraculous escape. Already it seemed like an old memory, months behind them.

‘Don’t drop my clothes,” Ren countered, and began to make his way down to a shallow bend in the river. Rey could tell how the ground changed beneath them, Ren’s feet sinking into soft sediment until he walked deeper. Immediately she felt him shift against the current to steady himself, the water rising over his body until it swallowed him up to his midriff. It swirled cold around her ankles, splashing up over her calves and even backside on some of his steps. Ren tightened his grip, holding her legs solidly against his chest to keep her from sliding off.

The river was quite wide, but Ren had been right: it got no deeper than this at their crossing point, so Rey did stay dry, mostly. Clutching the curve of his neck with one hand, she held on tight to their clothes with her other, wincing as the fabric of her shorts became soaked with an ill-timed splash of cold water. It gave her goosebumps, and she shivered again, her legs clenching tighter around his neck, warm and solid.

Unbidden, a vision he had taunted her with weeks ago flitted through her thoughts: his head between her legs, strikingly similar to their current position, if flipped. His skin was just as warm on her sensitive thighs as false-memories promised, and even with her feet beneath the cold water, Rey could feel her body growing hot. She was glad he couldn’t see her from this angle, even as the image of his dark eyes looking up at her replayed on a loop in her mind.

She slid her hand a little further up his neck, following the lines of muscle beneath his dark hair. She was just holding on to keep from falling into the river, she told herself. His next wobbly step offered convenient testimony that she needed to. Her fingertips slipped into the edge of his hairline, and it was as soft as it looked, both in her hands and where it brushed teasingly against her bare abdomen.

Ren adjusted his grip on her legs once again, sliding his hands higher, their heat pleasant around her calves. Neither of them said a word, and Rey, at least, kept her mental shields up as much as possible, not trusting herself to deeply consider whose thoughts she was really worried about.

 

\-------------------------------

 

By the time they reached the far bank, Ren was grateful for the unforgiving chill of the river. His whole body felt ten degrees warmer than strictly necessary, and he had little on him to cover up just how... affected he was by the girl’s proximity, so the cold water was a boon. There was no way for him to tell if she was similarly stirred, and he had never wanted to know another’s thoughts so strongly. He had caught the flicker of something from her as she climbed his shoulders, but Rey was a natural at protecting her thoughts by now; he couldn’t pry into what it might have been, even if he applied all his strength.

That fact alone made it worse- or better, depending on the perspective. Her talent with the Force was just as attractive to Ren as her body or her fierceness. He could admit to himself that he _was_ attracted to her, now that it seemed they might live through this ordeal; perhaps they’d even outgrown their animosity for good. Her hands, which had crept soft as a whisper into his hair, made him think he might have a chance, finally, at persuading her to stay with him, even letting him train her. He had already begun, with their hours of preparation to escape. The outcome of that training had gone remarkably well, she had to see that too. Rey could be so much stronger if she became his permanent apprentice. If more arose from that arrangement… perhaps they might both grow stronger for it. Passion was the foundation for his strength, after all; what would a shared passion offer, he wondered?

He was quiet, considering these thoughts, as he climbed up the riverbank.

“You can put me down now, Ren,” Rey said softly. Her voice sounded odd, coming from above him. He realized he had been standing a moment too long out of the river, not moving. At least his arousal had cooled off. He gradually crouched down again, careful to keep Rey upright as he descended. She slid one leg at a time out of his grasp, and then her weight and warmth were gone. He straightened up.

The sun was falling behind the tree-covered hills ahead of them now. Ren rolled his shoulders a few times, feeling the pull of well-used muscled, and decided they had gone about far enough for the day.

When he turned back to Rey, she was already lacing up her boots, back in her flight suit, damp shorts and all. She had left his bundle of clothes by his feet, while he air-dried. Ren swallowed against the sudden sense of vulnerability.

“The light won’t last much longer,” he told her, tone more gruff than he intended. “We should make camp for the night.”

“Camp” was a very loose term for “mushroom-like trees to rest under,” as it turned out. Ren had been hoping for a cave or something more substantial to hide in, but Rey declared the cluster of close trees with their strangle, purple, umbrella-like webbing enough cover from the elements and their captors for the night. They were both exhausted, running on next to no rest since the day before their escape. They hadn’t eaten either, but Ren didn’t trust the flora of this planet, while Rey simply didn’t know what to look for. She had only known pre-packaged rations for most of her life, probably. That was his fault, Ren remembered, clenching his jaw.

They bedded down for the night in pockets of soft lichen and leaves, too tired for talking and neither worried enough about being discovered to volunteer for guard duty. Both were soon swallowed by darkness and sleep.  


Near dawn, Ren sputtered awake to a torrential downpour of rain, and Rey was gone.

He threw himself to his feet, grasping tree trunks to pull his way out of their camp and into the dark open woods beyond. Rain fell into his hair, his eyes, blurring his vision even further, and he cursed, furiously wiping it away. He couldn’t see anything.

He spun in place, tongue stuck on the first phoneme of her name, ready to scream it into the night, stealth be damned, when a flash of lightning struck a perfect moment of clarity in front of him.

Rey was standing not twenty paces from their beds, on the edge of a clear patch in the canopy, grinning like a lunatic up into the sky.

Marching through the new mud straight to her, Ren grasped her arm roughly and tugged her to face him.

She gasped, ripped from whatever spell she was under, suddenly staring up at him with wide eyes, lashes wet. She was wet everywhere in fact, drenched even more than he was.

“What are you _doing_?” he demanded, nearly yelling to be heard over the rain.

She gaped at him for a moment, before pulling her arm free and yelling back, “I was enjoying the rain, thank you very much,” as if it were _he_ who had gone mad.

She turned back and lifted her face into it again, and he realized she was catching drops on her tongue like a child. It sent a pang through his chest, already tight with adrenaline.

“I thought the Hutts had found you,” he yelled to her back. A loud crack of thunder broke over their heads, and he winced.

“Power down, nanny droid,” she tossed back at him. “Did you forget how to use the Force? I just wanted a drink. I’ve never tasted rain before.”

Ren clenched his shaking hands into fists, coming down from the edge of panic. He took a breath to calm the thrumming of his heart before he reached out a hand, not stopping to think about what he was doing, and suspended the rain just above Rey.

Feeling the movement in the Force, she turned to glare at him, her open mouth reshaping-- to berate him, no doubt-- but he kept his eyes on the droplets, paused in their descent. At a gesture from his fingers, the raindrops pooled into one massive, fluid orb over her head, ripping in the breeze. She took a quick step back, as if she expected him to drop it on her. Instead, he gently lowered the reflective, shifting globe level to her mouth.

Rey narrowed her eyes at him, her expression uncertain. In turn, he regarded her evenly, letting her make up her mind. Suspicion flickered in and out of her eyes, brow knit, but her gaze caught again on the floating body of water, and curiosity tugged her forward, until her mouth met the surface hesitantly, and she drank. The water flowed past her lips without the restraints of gravity, clinging to her tongue, and Ren found it impossible to look away. Tiny droplets spiraled off as she slurped, the surprising novelty of it made her eyes crease with delight as she met his stare.

She straightened a moment later and smiled, another flash of lightning revealing dimples and shining eyes. A surprised laugh bubbled out of her, loud even over the storm, and Ren found himself smiling too. For the first time in ages he took an easy deep breath, lungs filling with the fresh smell of petrichor. Wishing he enjoyed anything as much as this desert scavenger seemed to enjoy rain, he pulled the remainder of the orb toward himself, tasting it. It was surprisingly crisp, and he drank deeply.

When he had had his fill, he looked down again to find Rey eyeing him oddly, her gaze intense.

“What?” He asked.

Instead of answering, she lifted her hand to his face, fingers brushing against his cheek. Their bond jumped to life, and he felt the Force flow between them as strong as ever. Staring back at her, his questions faded as he was gripped by her gaze, unable to look away. He shifted closer, and was gratified when she didn’t move back. Inches apart, he watched the rain continuing to fall, landing on her upturned cheeks and lips. His eyes flickered to her mouth, slightly parted.

It was then that the feeling in the back of his mind finally registered: a void of darkness... an absence of anger. It had been replaced with a growing glow, building between them and within them, bridged where her hand rested against his face. It was the Light side of the Force, he realized. She was giving it to him, or acting as a conduit, he couldn’t tell. Familiar as an old friend, it called to him, and he sunk into it, cool and pleasant and powerful, a comforting embrace.

He hadn’t felt it like this in years. He never wanted it to leave him again.

Looking down in wonder at Rey, Ren didn’t trust himself to speak.The girl’s face seemed to have its own glow now, beautiful even in the rain. He bent down slowly, leaning into her touch, watching the way her pupils widened, and how the drops caught in her lashes, falling to tracing her delicate nose, the sweet curve of her cupid’s bow lips, dripping…. red. Dark red. The color was vivid against her skin, and all at once it fell from her hairline too, and her eyes, until her face was covered in thick, oozing red, her mouth opening in a silent scream.

Ren reeled back, tripping over roots until he fell down into the wet leaves and mud behind him, squeezing his eyes shut, but the face was burned into his retinas, and _she_ was screaming his name, over and over.

 

\-------------------------------

 

“Ren? _Ren!_ What happened?” Rey called through the rain, dismay and shock making her voice shake. Kylo Ren was curled in on himself on the damp forest floor, hands pressed to his face, and she had no idea why.

Well, she had some idea, if the rush of shame and terror over their connection was anything to go by. He had ripped himself away before sharing the source of it, however. Just a second before, she had been fairly certain they were having a moment, surrounded by the Light side of the Force and a _lot_ closer, she sensed, to a change in the path for both of them than she had expected. It was Ben Solo’s face she had reached out to touch, his eyes gleaming with Light like Leia’s did, his mouth curled into Han’s charming smile. Even his energy in the Force had changed to something Lighter- and _stronger_ , Rey was sure of it.

And then it it had all disappeared. She had chased after that man through the Force, looking for the threads of Ben Solo before they were lost again. Instead, she found a mess of emotion as she touched his mind: fear and guilt, remorse and hatred. Kylo Ren’s feelings spilled over without filter, uncontainable.

Stepping over to him, Rey bent and grasped his shoulder, but he cried out as if she had burned him, and she dropped her hand.

“Ren, please. Will you tell me what happened? How can I help?”

His black-clothed figure shuddered, visible even in the darkness and rain.

“ _You can’t_ ,” He spat bitterly from beneath his hands.

“I can, if you let me,” Rey said, sitting on her haunches next to him.

“Liar,” he sneered. “You can’t rewrite the past. You can’t undo the _things I’ve_ _done_. No one can.”

Hesitantly, Rey probed a bit deeper, surprised when he didn’t resist. She caught a glimpse of his thoughts, a young girl’s smile and then her scream as hot metal bit into her, blood exploding outward. Liya. Rey understood then, as some part of her had known since that day in the Starkiller interrogation room, that at the heart of this man was the death of that one girl. Like a seed planted and watered with self-hatred, that event had grown to define his life, ripping him from his rightful place in the balance of the Force, and slamming a wall between him and his family.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “No one can change what’s happened. No power, Light or Dark, can do that. But that doesn’t mean our past actions have to define us.”

Ren let his hands fall, planting them on the ground as he leaned into it, breath hitching.

“Doesn’t it?” He said, almost too quiet for her to hear.

“If a dirty scavenger on a outlaw planet can become a Jedi apprentice, I’m willing to believe that anyone can choose a different path in life,” she told him lightly. He was quiet for a beat, then sat up in a rush.

“And who did you murder on the way?” He asked, glaring at her. “Show me the blood you’ve washed off your hands, the list of people you’ve commanded to die, that you were able to walk away from.”

He stood then, towering over her, his silhouette framed by the faintly-brightening sky. Rey opened her mouth and shut it again, not sure how to answer him, but he continued without her reply.

“There’s a reason I’m not balancing rocks and stifling every emotion under Luke’s control anymore," he said, his tone caustic. "He may be my uncle, but it’s his father’s blood that runs through my veins. Vader’s power is my power, his darkness is _my darkness_. Once I realized that, I didn’t have to fight anymore to _not feel_ anything. I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else.”

“But that’s _not_ who you are, not from what I’ve seen,” Rey countered, pushing herself to her feet as well. “You don’t like killing. You told me you never killed children the way Vader did, and I’ve seen your memories; you never intended to hurt Liya either.”

“ _Don’t._ ” He said, voice vibrating with anger. “Don’t presume to know me. Maybe I’m not as...as vicious as Vader, but I will be as powerful as he was. I will build on his legacy. That’s what I was born to do. I’ve already crossed beyond turning back… I killed Han Solo.” He swallowed, his voice wavering alarmingly before he steadied himself. “You can’t change who you are, Rey. And I’m not a Jedi.”

He breathed hard, staring at her, and then the edge in his expression melted into something softer, vulnerable and entreating.

“Keep training with Luke long enough and you might understand how restricting that life is. The Jedi Way demands that you to turn off your passion, your human desires, for peace. It’s a lie the whole Republic has bought into: _peace_. Only, what they really want is to strip people of any power. It’s tyranny.”

Rey was shaking her head, not wanting to believe him, but Ren wasn’t finished. He closed the distance between them, his big hands coming up to grasp her shoulders, swelling their connection once more. He looked down into her face, and there was pain in his eyes, but a new anticipation as well.

“Sooner or later, you’ll see it too. Denying what you want is a weakness, not a strength. It isn’t right. And it’s not your only option.”  
  
Rey opened her mouth to argue, but he hauled her closer, his face just above hers, and her words dried up.

“I’ve seen how quickly you learn,” he told her, voice low and intense. “You don’t need Luke; he’s only holding you back." His eyes roamed her face, and Rey couldn't make herself look away, couldn't move. "You have a strong will. You’re a survivor. But if you live like a Jedi, that’s all you’d be doing: surviving. You could be _stronger_ than that. You could be your own master. I could help you.”

His last words were said nearly against her lips, he was so close. Rey felt herself swaying in place, his strong grip keeping her planted more than her own legs. They had never been this close, face to face, and the effect was...distracting. She could see the two different shades of his eyes, green and brown, and feel the warmth coming off his skin. It was closer than she’d let almost anyone get before.

And that was the worst part: that he was right, in some ways. She had spent her whole life fighting off others, defending her body and her meager food, just to get by. Even with the Resistance, she knew she had never fully let her guard down. And hadn’t she struggled with the Jedi principles herself? It really wasn’t logical to ask people to repress their own nature... but was the only alternative an about-face into the Dark side of the Force? She didn’t believe that.

“Maybe the Jedi are wrong,” she began, and Ren jerked his head back to stare at her in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to convince her, but she wasn’t finished either. “Maybe the Jedi rules are... too extreme, stifling even-- but then, so is the Dark side. I’m not sure I buy into either.”  
  
“Rey--,” he began again, but she spoke over him.

“I’ve lived around outlaws long enough to know that some order needs to exist, or all that’s left is chaos, and chaos is a kriffing mess. But if wiping out entire planets and crushing any resistance is what you call the way to freedom from tyranny, then the ends don’t justify the means, Ren. If peace is a lie, so is your power. You’re just as much a slave to the Dark side as you ever were to the Light. You just chose yourself a different master.”

Ren released her before she had even finished speaking, shoving distance between them once more. They stared at each other for a long moment, his scowl pitted against the determined clench of her jaw. Finally, his gaze darted around the forest, where the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and he drew himself up, seeming to recall their circumstances.

“I think we’ve camped for long enough,” he said, voice clipped. “Let’s find the damned town and get off this planet.”

 

\-------------------------------

 

Ren’s instinct was to completely block out their entire discussion as they began walking once more. His identity was forged in the literal ashes of Darth Vader; to suggest he could simply choose a different path was to dismiss every hard-won, unforgivable step he’d taken on this one.

 _She’s wrong_ , he fumed as he led the way forward, marching deeper into the forest. Clever as she may be, the girl was untrained; how could she know what was true about him or the Force, when she was still so newly introduced to both? Running his hands through his damp hair, Ren winced in annoyance as his fingers dislodged more than one leaf.

 _Besides_ , he thought, stepping across a shallow creek, _I’m not a slave to anything; not to the dark side of the Force, not even to Snoke_. Wasn’t he proving it now, with an obvious _compassion_ quite established for Rey, in spite of the Supreme Leader’s warnings? Snoke was powerful and wise, and he had taken Ren in at his lowest point, when he had thought himself useless; yet Kylo Ren was his own master.

In spite of this, the girl’s accusation was irritatingly difficult to ignore, like a training remote he couldn’t switch off. Little pieces of her speech darted in to burn him, a thousand tiny holes singed into his pride. He reached out for the dark power of the Force, wishing for the blankness of a trance, but couldn’t focus enough to settle into one.

He missed the burning flash of his saber. Without it, the only outlet for his frustration was to gesture angrily at the hanging vines in his way, Force-tearing them down for lack of a better method. They fell with a satisfying rip. At least it made him feel slightly better to be destroying something.

Rey walked behind him meekly, for once. Maybe _she_ was just as preoccupied with the things _he_ had said. The idea brought a bitter smile to his face, but there _had_ been a moment back there, when he was sure he had her.

Ren glanced behind him surreptitiously. Rey was looking down at her feet, but what he could see of her face was streaked with dirt, mud dried in her hair. Her orange flight suit was considerably more dull after a few days roughing it in the forest.

She still managed to look both competent _and_ attractive to him, just another barb to his ego. Personally, he felt like a pile of Thaylian bog slime, and doubted he looked much better. The sooner they made it to civilization, the sooner they’d be off this trash heap of a planet. He picked up the pace, letting his long legs carry him forward, and forcing Rey to a near jog. But she didn’t ask him to slow down, and he didn’t offer.  


It was midday by the time they crested the hill to find civilization. Ren had never been so glad to see an edge-planet settlement, primitive as it was. In truth, it was surprisingly large for outer-rim territory; there was a good chance they had a spaceport.

He glanced at Rey as she caught up with him, breathing fast as she joined him in looking over the hill. He didn’t give her longer than a heartbeat to rest. Pushing forward without a word, he was gratified to hear her long-suffering sigh and then her footsteps coming after him.

 

\-------------------------------

 

Rey could only recall having one disagreement before: when Finn wanted to run from the First Order and she wouldn’t go with him. Of course, she had been in _fights_ before, and argued over everything from territory rights to food rations to how little she was interested in someone’s advances, but she hadn’t had anything like a friend until she met Finn, and zero reason to quarrel with him (or Poe, or anyone else) since the day he came back for her on Starkiller base.

She wasn’t even angry at Ren now, although she was pretty sure he was angry with her. The imbalance was disconcerting. She knew he wasn’t lost to the Dark side entirely, but _he_ didn’t seem to know that, and was even upset by the implication. It bothered her more than she expected it to, and she felt the absurd reflex to make amends, even though she had done nothing wrong.

So she followed Ren down the hill without saying a word, wondering if there actually _was_ middle ground-- between them, between the past and future, and between the Dark and Light, all of which felt way above her head. But her instincts held firm that there was a balance to be found, somewhere.

If nothing else, she had always been good at making up her own rules.  


The settlement was a comforting sight, promising relief to her tired legs, dizzy thoughts, and the emptiness of her stomach. The first building they came across was an inn. Rey pushed past Ren as they entered, not interested in letting his mood sabotage their escape. She made her way to the counter of a makeshift bar at the back of the room, wary eyes following her from a mix of several races. They mostly sat at tables alone with what she assumed were mugs of ale, judging by the malty smell. The scent made her stomach clench, a reminder that she hadn’t eaten in days, and she felt a conflicting mix of vulnerability and comfort. A rough setting, and hunger to boot, were familiar territory at least.

She could sense Ren’s irritation behind her, ripples in the Force belying the quickening of his heartbeat as he scanned for threats, and the twitch of his fingers by his empty belt. She ignored both, schooling her features into a neutral but unyielding expression to address the Besalisk barkeep.

“We’re looking for transport, off-planet. Is there a port or shipyard in the area?”

The Besalisk was leisurely in his reply, a pair of arms counting coins while another poured mugs of the dark ale. His murky yellow eyes made the slow journey up from his tasks, accessing Ren behind her first before he focused on her face.

“Don’t get many requests for directions to the spaceport from here, seein’ as how that’s where most visitors _come_ from.”  
  
“We were separated from our party,” Rey told him, voice unwavering. “We’re just a bit lost.”

“More than one way to be lost,” the Besalisk commented, quirking his brow. “For example, I hear the Hutts _lost_ a couple of human prisoners from the Cliff Cells not two days ago.” His voice was casual, as was the clink of coin between his fingers, but his meaning was unmistakable. Rey had pretty much expected this, her days on Jakku preparing her for no less. Behind her, Ren bristled.

“You-” he began loudly, leaning forward over Rey, but she elbowed him hard enough to stall whatever stupid thing he was bound to say.

She smiled benignly as Ren wheezed in the background. They had no money to grease the barkeeper's palm, but she wouldn’t need it here.

“We’re just looking for directions. You don’t mind pointing us in the right way, do you?” she said, voice low, but steely with Force-compulsion.  
  
The scaley man blinked, as if dizzy, and then repeated in a dull tone, “I don’t mind pointin’ you in the right way.” His upper right hand lifted, literally pointing left, through the wall. “You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” Rey said with feeling. Ren leaned over her shoulder again, but more slowly this time, the warmth of his body solid and distracting against her. In his own low timber, he added, “You never saw us.”

“I never saw you,” the barkeeper parroted back in a confident tone, but still dazed. His eyes were empty, looking right through them, Rey realized. Time to go, then. She turned on her heel, grabbing a handful of Ren’s cloak, and dragged him out of the Inn with her, feeling every interested pair of eyes on them as they left.

“We don’t have much time now,” Rey said quietly after the doors banged shut after them.

“We’d have more time if you didn’t insist on barreling into the seediest bar you could find to announce we’re here,” Ren snapped, grasping her arm as he steadied himself against her pulling.

“A couple of weapon-less, dirt-covered strangers wandering the town wouldn’t be any less conspicuous. I just saved us time. I want a bath and food as soon as possible.”

She let go of him then, trusting he would keep up with her as she briskly walked toward the direction of the starport. Her hand came away grey with dirt from his cloak. “Speaking of needing a bath,” she said, waving her palm at him.

“At least I don’t look like I clawed my way out of a shallow grave,” he retorted, long strides easily matching her pace. “There are advantages to wearing black.”

Rey bit her lip, but couldn’t help herself. “Is one of them to match your dark, tortured soul?”

He swiped at her but she was already running, heart just a little lighter than before.  


Standing at the entrance of the port, Rey felt some of her paranoia replaced with relief. No one seemed to have followed them, from what she could sense, and she had found the port easily. Just like the barkeep had said, it would have been hard to miss: the building was massive, a far larger terminal than she could have hoped for. They were sure to find passage on a ship within.

A moment later Ren caught up, stepping shoulder-to-shoulder with her as she surveyed the stone building. She glanced up at him and, not for the first time since they had been thrown into this mess, considered what would happen once they were out of it. Disagreements aside, things between them felt different now. He could easily decide to find passage without her, returning to Snoke, probably. Rey had the unsettling sense that she shouldn’t let him. If they parted now, whatever truce-- or more-- that they had would dissolve.

“First one to successfully barter our way onto a ship gets the shower?” she proposed, trying a conciliatory smile.

He turned to look at her, his expression unreadable, seeming to weigh something in his mind before he nodded. Rey’s smile widened into one of relief. He gave her a quick, uneven smile in return, then looked back to the port and led the way inside.

A bustle of activity met them past the doors. Gates open to ship ramps and conveyor belts let in light, but the maze of a building had plenty of darker corners too, the likely home of shady characters conducting questionable business. The buzz of conversation and movement would at least make it easier to go unnoticed, Rey hoped. The planet was likely some kind of major trade or export colony, if this many visitors had business here. Surely they could negotiate with _someone_.

Ren made his way through the crowd, past massive crates of goods and even a chained line of prisoners, likely slaves or indentured servants, judging by their defeated look. Rey frowned as she passed them, but Ren’s long legs were taking him too far ahead, and she was anxious not to lose him in the flood of people.

She wove through the throng, but the mob didn’t part for her small frame like it did for his, and she couldn’t keep up. A glimpse of dark hair caught her eye just before Ren rounded a corner ahead of her, and she huffed in frustration. Halted by a clumsy group of Gungans loading pallets of goods, she pushed through more people and finally turned the corner. She saw a long corridor of busy port gates, and absolutely no sign of Ren. A small spike of panic hit her, and she cast out with the Force, but just like that, her sense of him was gone. He was blocking her, she realized with a pang of shock.

She was going to kill him.

Maybe it had been naive to think that their exchange out front was reparation enough, to trust that their truce and partnership still held. But even if he was still furious with her, she couldn’t let him leave her behind. Not again.

Stepping into a shadowy alcove by a closed port gate, Rey sunk into the Force, feeling for her traitor compatriot. Or rather, feeling for impressions of him in the thoughts of those around her. She flitted from mind to mind with no one the wiser, lightly skimming their most recent memories for his face, determined to find him.

What she found first were the Hutts.

It was impossible to sense them directly, but she saw them from the eyes of the crowd, felt each person’s unease as the Hutts passed them, the relief when they were gone. They were moving away, Rey was pleased to realize, letting out a tense breath. She refocused on Ren, piecing together the fragments of movement she was able to gather, but few people noticed another dirty, black-clad man in the crowd. It was delicate work, sifting glimpses of him from indifferent minds, taking so much of her attention that she completely missed the Mustafarian mercenary heading straight for her.

At the last moment, the creature’s intent rippled out to her and she gasped, eyes flying open as she cast about for weapon or escape, but it was too late; the mercenary was armed, and she was cornered.

 _Ren_ _!_ she shouted through the Force, but there was no answering flicker of awareness.

The mercenary gestured with his blaster and chirped at her in an unfamiliar language, but his intent was clear: _Move._ When Rey didn’t react fast enough, he jammed his blaster into her ribs with adequate force to bruise, and she reluctantly turned around to find the packed corridor clearing out. One of the Hutts stood at the far end of it, another weapon trained on her. He smiled, greasy lips pulled back, and his dark, slimy tongue slithered out to wet them. Rey felt her stomach twist. The Force stretched out around her, touching hundreds of lives, but not a one was interested in helping. She gave one last attempt to reach Ren, mentally shouting into the void, to no avail. He could be in hyperspace by now. There was no one coming back for her this time.

At least she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Shuffling forward, the barrel of the blaster hard against her spine, Rey made her way slowly toward the disgusting creature leering at her, his eyes never leaving her body. A shiver of sick outrage flooded her, blood going hot through her veins. She knew her luck was running thin.

Desperation and anger sharpened the power she pulled from the Force, and she used it like a blade, digging it viciously into the mind of her captor without turning around. The blaster slipped from her back, and the Mustafarian crumpled, emitting a high-pitched buzz of agony.

Rey was already leaping over him by the time he hit the ground.

Sprinting, she wove around gaping bystanders and crates piled high, praying for an exit ahead. A blast over her right shoulder sent her stumbling into a stack of caged creatures, and she cursed, shoving her hair out of her eyes.This wasn’t going to be one of her smoother escapes.

She dodged four more shots before she reached the end of the hallway, darting left around the corner into another, less-well-lit passageway that branched into three. A sea of suspicious faces turned her way, but she ignored them, spotting a larger patch of daylight from another main entrance down the hall- and another two Hutts coming in from it.

“Chaos take me,” she swore, swiveling around to scan her remaining options. She was tempted to go for the nearest open port gate, hoping for roof access or an unattended vessel, but the chance of entrapment was too high, and she shifted to look at the pair of dim alleys to her right.

Hoping for better luck ahead, she made for the middle opening, but an unexpected jerk pulled her right. Confused, she slowed her steps, twisting around, but found no obvious source. Then it came again, and the familiar energy registered. As if a cord were tied around her wrist, she was tugged forward, and Ren was on the other end of it. It took her a dizzying moment to fully comprehend, even as she let it guide her steps. He hadn’t left her after all.

A gravelly command in Huttese echoed down the hall, startling her back to the need to _move_ , and she picked up speed. Not a moment too soon she vaulted through the walls of the alley, a burst of fire erupting behind her. The Hutts had definitely seen her, kriffing orange flight suit be damned. Their lackeys would be coming next. She ran faster, sweating beneath her uniform, not daring to look back. Two more turns in the labyrinth of corridors, and the sound of footfalls echoed disturbingly close.

A blaster went off against the wall where her head had been a moment before, and then she was rounding one final corner at the entrance to a single-vessel dock, where Ren stood at the foot of a VCX-100 freighter, waiting for her.

“Took you long enough,” he said, and Rey _growled_ , Force-shoving him up the ramp of the ship. He barely made it without tripping over his own feet.

Marching after him, Rey found the door latch easily, bringing the ramp up and sealing the entrance behind her. Then she spun around to tell the crew that they had to leave _now,_ except, all she saw was a disgruntled Ren standing in the dimly-lit airlock, alone. Behind him, the flight deck was dead quiet.

“Please tell me you didn’t murder the crew,” she said in a rush, before brushing past him toward the cockpit.

“Well-” he began.

“Actually,” she interrupted, “don’t tell me until we’re off this stupid planet. I’ll decide how guilty to feel then.”

Sliding into the pilot’s seat, she began the flick and switch of bringing the craft to life. The hum of well-maintained engines was a pleasant surprise.

“At least you picked a decent ship,” she said as Ren took the co-pilot’s chair. He reached for the control wheel but she slapped his hand away nonchalantly, without slowing her pace.  

“I grew up on a ship like this. I should be piloting it,” he said.

“And I escaped First Order TIE fighters on that same piece of junk,” she retorted, twisting to the panel behind her to power down the crew quarters, directing all energy to the engines. “We don’t have time to squabble. Strap in and shut up.”

A blaster bolt echoed dully against the hull of the ship and a warning alarm beeped from the control panel. They froze, exchanging an anxious look before Ren reached up and flicked on the shields. Without a word he settled back into the co-pilot’s chair and strapped himself in.

Rey didn’t wait a moment longer. With a quick glance at her radar, she lifted the freighter up and felt the rumble of the landing gear retracting, recalling her clumsy take-off on Jakku. The extra second was worth it for a clean launch, and the moment the dashboard indicator light blinked on, she yanked the controls back, shooting them up and out into the sky.

The shield registered the hit of blaster bolts even as they flew away, but Rey was more concerned with pursuit vehicles. She glanced at her scopes every other second, timing their ascent for the soonest possible jump to lightspeed.

 

\-------------------------------

 

The sight of starlines was like a flood of oxygen to the cockpit, making Ren lightheaded. He took a deep lungful of air, inhaling the smell of metal and old leather, and relaxed into his chair. Automatically, he looked to Rey, who appeared as relieved as he felt. She slouched back from the controls, staring at the passage of stars around them, before swiveling to level a hard glance at him.

“Nice flying,” he commented, hoping to soften the accusing look in her eyes.

“Nice ship,” she replied coolly. “If I go back looking for a shower, am I going to find a pile of corpses in the ‘fresher?”

“No,” he scoffed. “I left them in a crate at the starport.”

She stared at him in silent shock.

“Kidding!” He held up his hands placatingly, but failed to cover his smirk. “Kidding. Sorry. Poor taste. I didn’t actually kill anyone.”

Her frown was fierce. “Then what in the fregging hell was all that sneaking off and blocking me? Was I just a distraction, bait for the Hutts?”

He shifted awkwardly in his chair and cleared his throat. “Of course not. I didn’t know the Hutts were here until I found you again.”

“Then why?” she demanded, relentless.

Ren was surprised at the heat of her anger. He hadn’t felt this chastised since Luke’s training.

“I wasn’t sure about your policy on stealing, all right? I knew we didn’t have enough time to negotiate, but it only took a quick scan of the port to find a crew nearly ready for takeoff, and then... _compel_ them to leave. If you had moral objections to that, I thought it would be easier not to argue over it until _after_ we were safely off-planet.”

“Oh,” she said, visibly relaxing. A quiet moment stretched out as she processed this. “Was that all?”

Ren sat still in surprise as she stood and casually stretched the tension from her muscles. “You realize I stole the _Millennium Falcon_ off Jakku, right? Wouldn’t be the first thing, either.” She dropped her arms, _winked_ at him, and then spun on her heel toward the crew quarters.

He took another moment to recover from _that_ shock before it hit him.

“Hey! I won the first shower!” he called after her.

“Not according to the language of the agreement!” she yelled back. “‘Force-compel’ does not qualify as ‘bartering’. And I’m already naked, so deal with it.”

“Scavengers,” Ren muttered, but found himself too distracted by “ _naked_ ” to argue.  


It wasn’t until they were both freshly clean, wearing “borrowed” clothes from the previous crew, and eating warm bowls of reconstituted stew, that the inevitable topic came up: where to go next.

Ren sat across from Rey in the galley and tried not to stare as she wolfed down her meal, unabashedly swiping sauce from the bowl with her finger and licking it off as she finished. He’d never met anyone who ate like this girl. He hid his grin in a long gulp of water, but when he set his cup down, she was regarding him intently from across the table.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Stay with me,” she blurted, then seemed to hear her own words and colored slightly. “I mean, come with me back to D’Qar.”

She looked so fierce and sure, he was almost tempted; but then reality came back to him, and he was drained of good humor. “I’m not welcome there,” he said flatly. Faces flashed through his memory: his father’s, his mother’s, and those of resistance fighters he had tortured or killed. “That’s not going to change.”

“I think it could,” she argued. “Especially if you came back with me. Your mother misses you-”

“Even if that were true, do you really think the leaders of the resistance would trust me?” His hand tightened around his cup, denting the thin metal. “Who said I even _want_ to go? I told you, I’ve chosen my path. Rejoining my mother and uncle in their crusade against the Dark side is not part of it.”

‘Then show them a different way.” Rey said, leaning across the table. “You don’t have to be a Jedi or a-” she gestured to him, casting for the right words, “a Dark Lord, either. That’s not how it has to work.”

“Actually, that’s exactly how it works,”  he retorted. “There’s no _Grey Side_ of the Force, Rey,” he huffed, laughing dryly at the idea.

She didn’t seem to find it amusing. Instead, she Force-shoved him just hard enough to makes his chair wobble back onto two legs precariously, sending him flailing to grip the edge of the table. He was equally thrown off by her use of the Dark side, the acrid heat of it lingering in the air.

“Says who?” she challenged.

He scowled at her as he recovered his balance, unsure of her intent, but annoyed with her ignorance. “Says the entirely galaxy,” he deadpanned, crossing his arms. “Since time out of mind there have been Jedi and Sith, Dark and Light wielders of the Force. It’s instinctual.”

“Oh, like how you claim to be a second Darth Vader but are _instinctually_ tempted by the Light?”

Ren felt a cold splash of shock before anger flamed through him. “That temptation goes both ways, _Rey_ , or don’t you remember nearly killing me in a snowstorm?”

“Exactly!” Rey said, triumphant. “I freely admit to using the Dark side of the Force. You’ve felt it. But I don’t let it control me, luckily for _you_ , or you’d be dead. And now look at me-”

“I am looking at you,” he said over her, voice cold. “And what I see is an undisciplined, untrained _waste_ of the Force.”

It was exactly the right-- or wrong-- nerve to hit. Rey’s spine went rigid, and her jaw clenched. Ren felt it coming a fraction of a second before she sent him flying back against the wall, Dark energy blazing between them. He smiled grimly after impact, meeting her glare.

“You’re no more a Jedi than I am. Look at how you let your passions rule you. You were made for the Dark Side.”

She lifted him up before slamming him down again, and he felt the breath go out of him.

“I’m a Force-user. That’s what I’m made for. I’m just better at control than you. You’re too busy trying to be Vader.” She tilted her head, as if remembering something. “Do you even know what happened to him?” she asked, voice tight and angry.

“Skywalker killed him,” Ren croaked. “He told me himself.”

“He told me, too,” she said, stalking closer. “He told me Vader was tempted to the dark side to protect the people he loved, only he couldn’t control it. He was too unbalanced, and it consumed him. But Luke didn’t kill him. Luke _saved_ him. He brought back the man that was his father. Lord Vader died when Anakin Skywalker returned from the Dark. _That’s_ your idol’s legacy.”

Outrage and denial swept through Ren in equal measure, and all he could do was push back, his will clashing with hers in mid-air. Rey slid backwards, but the galley was small, and she was pressed up the curve where wall became ceiling as they each struggled for control. Rey’s Force-grip was remarkable, holding his whole body frozen, but Ren was well-practiced in this form of combat. He spooled power through his pain, a desire for revenge and victory collecting dark energy that he bent to his will. He was viciously pleased at her surprise when he wrenched her even further up the curved wall, until her back was flat against the ceiling. She narrowed her eyes again, but before she could respond, he hauled her forward, sliding her across the ceiling until she hung directly above him.

“So what, is that your plan here?” he grunted from below, “Redeem the pitiful, misunderstood villain, like Skywalker did?”

“Do I strike you as Luke’s protégé at the moment?” she said through her teeth, sending another wave to press him harder into the floor.

He choked, before meeting her power with his own, just enough to relieve the pressure on his lungs. “No,” he wheezed. “You’re more like mine.”

He was watching her closely to gauge her reaction, or he might have missed the widening of her eyes, and then the shift from anger to something more calculating. Before he could interpret it, he was distracted by the presence of a new energy, at odds with their battle.

Rey was drawing from the Light side, even as she held him frozen with the Dark. Which shouldn’t be possible….yet he could feel her getting stronger, beyond all reason.

“You’re cheating,” he said, but his surprise made the accusation sound more like a question.

“You could be cheating too, if you choose to,” she hurled down at him.

She was goading him, he knew. There was a trap to be discovered, if he could think, but he was dizzy with lack of airflow as well as the mix of power around them- not in combat, but harmony. And she was beating him with it.

He always hated being outdone.

Gritting his teeth, Ren reached out blindly for the Light, but he was clumsy from long years without practice, and half his consciousness was intent on maintaining his will in the Dark side. He managed to keep Rey pinned to the ceiling above him, but her own powers held still, not pressing for advantage while he worked, as if waiting to see if he could do this. It spurred him on, eager to prove himself every bit as talented as a half-trained scavenger.

Like old muscle memory, it came back to him all at once, and he felt the spark of connection, the flow of both Dark and Light within him, strangely satisfying. It reminded him of controlling the Force for the first time. All of creation and destruction were connected, within and around him, and they always had been, he could see now. He gasped, and even his breathing felt different, an openness of free energy, positive and negative, like a new set of lungs. 

Ren forgot about fighting, and even forgot Rey...until she landed hard on top of him.

“Ooaf,” she said into his neck. He could only lay still beneath her, struggling to breath, in an ironic twist of fate, as the wind was knocked out of him for a second time by an unfortunately-placed elbow and a complete shattering of his world-view.

After a moment, Rey pushed herself up a bit, disheveled and smug, to look down her nose at him.

“That will do for your first lesson, my apprentice.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, thanks for sticking around while I drowned in the creation of this chapter for three months. That's how long it took me to figure out what the hell these two crazy kids wanted from me. This was by far the most complex chapter to plot out, and one that took a lot of editing before I was satisfied with it. I hope you find it satisfying too. ;) Thanks to my goddess beta bluebellbeau, who has nursed me through many a despairing moment of writer's block. But we're not finished, kids. There's still some left to come. And if you thought this chapter had some steamy moments, then I suggest you slip into something more comfortable and crank up your AC for the next one!
> 
> I love you all dearly for your comments and kudos, they spur me on when I feel like quitting, and nourish my vain, narcissistic soul. <3


	8. Balance and Reverberation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thin cot barely telegraphed movement, but Ren felt her through the Force all the same, as she stretched out next to him. Her energy flickered, and the light from the hallway went out, sending them into deeper shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy there, friends! Bet you thought I'd forgotten about this one, huh? For those of you who've been waiting on an update, I'm SO SORRY it took me over a year to pick it up again. My only excuse is that I am a pile of human garbage and also 2017 was kind of a bitch. But TLJ was probably the most validating piece of media ever to enter my eyeballs, and I'd like to thank all the OG Reylo shippers out there who saw what I saw from the beginning. Everything is Star Wars and Nothing Hurts and I am SO ALIVE and ready to give this story an ending deserving of the CANON SHIP it contains. Thank you for sticking with me on this one, old and new readers alike!
> 
> Oh and Happy New Year!

 

 

Still reeling, Ren shoved the girl off of him, but there was no heat behind it. It was all he could do to begin processing what had just happened: an inconceivable bridging of two worlds, two halves of himself that he had long believed to be irreconcilable. Years of training, as Jedi and Knight of Ren alike, had taught him that. It was always all of one or the other, to both his masters; a choice bisecting him.

Yet even as he lay there, mind retracting from battle mode, the powers of the Force - _both_ sides - existed around him, neither fleeing in the wake of the other, but _mingling._ He hadn’t felt that in ages - had forgotten he ever did.

It wasn’t until a hand appeared above his face that he came back to himself, recalling who he was with, and why. The blinding wonder of the moment faded, and reality dug its claws back into him. Wordlessly, he took her proffered arm to pull himself off the floor, still dazed.

“Are you all right?” Rey asked, not quite letting go of his arm, although she was peering at him with newfound wariness, the caution of handling a wild animal. Ren was surprised to find himself as grateful for the warmth of her palm on his arm, as he was annoyed to be so clearly vulnerable.

“I’m not sure what I am anymore,” he said, raking a shaky hand through his tangled hair.

“You’re a Force user,” the girl answered softly. “Both light and dark, same as me. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

Ren snorted, humorless. He didn’t know if he was up for this discussion again. Drawing back from her, he made his way to the cramped crew quarters, hardly seeing where he was going as he dragged a hand along the cool metal wall. Rey followed at his back.

Ignoring her, he slid open the dimly lit compartment and sat heavily on the nearest cot. The girl’s energy hummed, spiky and frayed, close behind him. Through the heaviness in his limbs and flicker of annoyance, a detached part of him noted that he could feel her now more than ever, emotions rippling across their bond as easily as words spoken in a quiet room.

“I don’t know what you’re hoping for,” he admitted, aiming for venomous, but lacking real bite.

“I’m not leaving you alone right now,” she said, still watching him carefully. “That was... quite a lot to take in.”

He sighed, laying back on the spongy mattress. “It doesn’t… change anything, you know. Even if it lasts.”

“I bet Snoke would have a different opinion about that, if he knew,” she quipped, perching on the foot of the bed. “I can feel it in you, the Light… it’ll be difficult to hide. You can’t go back to him now, can you?”

She wasn’t wrong. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to chart a course to your rebel base and sign up for the next Jedi training session instead. The same reasons _why_ haven’t changed, Rey. They hate me, they want me dead- and for good reason. If I show up, even to surrender, the best I could hope for is a cold cell until this war is over, one way or another. At worst, a quick death.”

“It’s a rebellion, there’s a lot of rule-breaking going around,” she said dryly. “Besides, I know Leia-”

“Don’t,” he interrupted, a familiar flare of anger lighting him up, oddly comforting. “Just- don’t. ...please,” he said, softer.

Rey went quiet then, so quiet that he thought maybe she had left, without him noticing. The light was too dim in the crew bunks to see from where he lay, but suddenly he couldn’t bear to lift his head to check, to know that he was alone.

 _You’re not alone,_ came her voice across their bond, clearer now than ever before, and woven with threads of comfort, of belonging.

 _You’re not either,_ he couldn’t help replying, and the invitation, just a fragment of thought, slipped out before he could think better of it.

The thin cot barely telegraphed movement, but Ren felt her through the Force all the same, as she stretched out next to him. Her energy flickered, and the light from the hallway went out, sending them into deeper shadow.

Ren let out a breath hadn’t realized he was holding. In the sudden dark, he had nowhere left to focus, and reality swelled, undeniable and threatening to choke him. Beside him, Rey lay still, waiting.

The words, when they finally spilled out of him, felt razor sharp, dredged up from deep places within, and cutting him even as he conjured them into being.

 _I’ve spent years... building something, distilling it, growing powerful in the Dark,_ came the barest whisper of his mind, a confession on a microscopic scale, but she heard it. _Yet Snoke told me I was still weak - that I was nothing if I couldn’t let go of my past. I tried to stamp it out, to be purified of it, but that wasn’t enough, no matter how many people I killed, no matter how much rage flowed through me. I still wasn’t strong enough._

Next to him, Rey kept their bond open, just listening.

 _I thought,_ he continued haltingly _, if I killed Han Solo, I could finally be free- that it wouldn’t hurt anymore. My path to the Dark side would be clear and I could take up Vader's legacy, more powerful than even Snoke himself. But-- my torment_ didn’t _end. I killed my father, and now I see it- everything I did- was all for_ **nothing** _\--_

“Shh,” Rey said aloud, resting her hand on his chest, his rapid heartbeat fluttering beneath her palm. He covered it with his own, even as a sob ripped its way out of his throat. The truth of his confession burned bright in the Force, hitting him like a blaster bolt to the chest and spreading outwards. A torrent of regret, of horror and pain crashed through him. Rey could feel every pin prick of it, and she reached for him, pulling him into her arms where he clung to her desperately, gasping for air.

 _You were a child when Snoke came for you, mislead and manipulated,_ she whispered into his mind, his heart. _It’s not too late to turn back. The Force is with you now as much as it always was, but you can’t fight against half of it, Ren. It doesn’t work that way, in my experience. I don’t think it ever has._

 _It doesn’t matter,_ came the broken thread of his thoughts. _My father is gone. And Liya and...so many others. They’ll never forgive me._

Instead of replying, Rey slipped just a little deeper into his mind, meeting no resistance save for the waves of pain he radiated. Wincing only slightly, she flowed down through his memories, the ones she had glimpsed before and those she hadn’t, following images back in time as they grew lighter, less painful. There, she found what she was looking for. She drew it out carefully, something old and forgotten, or so he had thought.

Like pressing play on a holo, they watched together as a younger, taller Leia Organa knelt down, to give young Ben’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. He was crying, and through the tears they could see it: the little crushed body of a jewel-colored bug.

“I didn’t mean to-” Ben was sobbing, and Rey felt an odd echo of recognition, like agreement, from the grown man beside her.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Leia was saying, wiping his tears.

“But-” Young Ben hiccuped, “It’s _gone._ I felt it.”

“Nothing is ever truly gone from the Force, Ben.” Her smile was sad, full of too much grief for a young mother, but then she scooped him up, cradling him to safety, and smelling sweetly of her floral perfume, the scent of home.

Rey let the fragment of memory fade, withdrawing softly from his mind as his breathing leveled out. She could feel his tears soaking into her hair while her own spilled down her cheeks, but his anguish was growing quieter, a flame guttering out. Something akin to calm acceptance was spreading through him, not quite numbness, but an absence of pain like surrender, even as he pressed Rey closer to his chest, hands splayed out against her back.

They lay like that for a long moment, nothing but cloth and truth between them, the ebb and flow of their connection to each other, to the Force, encircling them. Then the moment shifted.

A flash of heat sparked between the two, tinder on flint. Neither was sure who it came from, but the sudden _awareness_ of each other felt inevitable, and immense. All at once Rey was hyperconscious of where his hand rested on the small of her back, skin to skin beneath her tunic, making her heart race. Her own hand crept up his neck and into his hair, fingernails sending tingles along his scalp that they both could feel.

 _Is that-_ she asked.

 _\- the bond,_ he answered, more of him open to her than she’d ever felt. Rey gasped, astonished at the new perception. It was like flying over a planet when you’ve only ever been on the ground; realizing how much bigger it is than you thought, horizons expanding to the size of a galaxy, and just as breathtaking. She could see the parts that make him up, many broken and twisted, but some gleaming, some reforged. It made her itch for mechanic’s tools, ones that could work here, amid the salvage of Ben Solo.

Bodies twisting together, their sensations reverberated, bouncing between the two of them like an echo chamber they tested slowly, delicately, both afraid to break it. Ren’s breath along her jaw made her shiver, and he smiled to feel the ghost of it through her mind. Her fingers curled tight in his shirt, a tug she felt over her own heart. He trailed a caress up her arm, marveling at the sensation, and hungry for more as he felt how much she _wanted_ him, with no more shields between them.

“Rey,” he breathed, and when he sunk his hands into her hair, pulling her to him, she turned to meet his lips with her own, soft and full of need. _Finally_.

Like fuel on flames, their kiss ignited urgency, the gentle brush of mouths not enough almost as soon as it began. Ren hauled her up to be more on level, the swipe of his tongue to her lips making her gasp. She could taste herself through him, a level of intimate she’d never known, and she moaned, flipping them over to straddle him with a tiny boost from the Force. They broke apart briefly, Ren breathing out a real laugh as their eyes met, and both of them sucking in lungfuls of air before he was drawing her down to kiss him again, insatiable. It made her dizzy, the loop of kissing and being kissed, pleasure turned exponential.

“Is this normal?” she asked between kisses, breathless.

“Nothing about us is normal,” he replied, voice low and raw.

It gave Rey an idea. As open as they were to each other across the bond, there could be no real surprises, but only the barest flicker of thought had struck her before she was drawing on the Force and _tearing._ The fabric of Ren’s shirt shredded like paper.

“Hey!” he cried, indignant while she smirked, but the game was on now, and as he placed hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, he picked apart the laces of her tunic with the Force, unknotting them one by one without ripping a thread.

“Show off,” Rey gasped, as his hands glided over her shoulders, pushing the fabric off and sitting them both upright again to help her out of it. She could barely take her palms from his wide, warm shoulders to tug off her bandeau, feeling him help her through the Force as she shimmied in his lap. He groaned in reaction to the movement, hands hot on her sides, then sliding up to cup her newly-bared breasts, thumbs tweaking her nipples. The shockwaves rippling through her and into him were delicious.

He flipped them back again, pressed her down into the mattress for a deep kiss while his fingers scrambled to undo the laces of his pants, beyond finesse now. Rey mirrored him, tugging her own leggings off in the brief moment he stood, their eyes locked and full of heat. When they were both naked, he crawled back to her more slowly, hunter stalking his prey - only Rey was enjoying the view without a trace of primal fear. He climbed over her and she reached up, curious fingers tracing the topography of scars, the sculpted lines of his chest, carved from hours of combat training. He hovered there above her, dark hair and shadow obscuring his features, but she could _feel_ the way he looked at her, the amazement and the desire, not just to have her, but to keep her as _his_. The barest edge of worry that he could lose her.

Rey slid her touch from his chest up to his face, her small hands, rough and strong from years of daily work, brushing soft against his jaw. Ren couldn’t hold himself back, leaning down to kiss her again, and already aching over the distance between them. He needed to feel her as close as possible.

“ _Yes_ ,” she whispered aloud, and it took him a moment to recognize the word as her agreement, her plea in response.

Skimming his hand from her neck, over breasts and stomach to between her legs, he found her more than ready, fingers slipping into her heat and wetness as she spread wide, inviting better access that had him trembling with want. Her breath hitched as his fingers teased her, no dream or Force vision this time, but real and thick against her entrance, pressing slightly, too much and not enough at once. She bucked her hips as he swirled his finger higher, and it was his turn to pull back and smirk at her.

“There are things I could teach you, about the Force,” he murmured, voice husky. “Things I bet no one’s ever shown you before…” He hadn’t moved, just the one finger still lazily circling the point she most needed friction, but while he propped himself up on his other arm, a gentle pressure brushed against her sex, cool and frictionless, but growing harder, thicker as it slipped inside her, just enough to make her mewl, her body clenching around nothing but power.

“ _Kriff_ ,” she swore. “Please, Ren, I _need_ -” she couldn’t say it, but the dark energy - fed by his passion, she felt - obeyed, pressing deeper into her as Ren increased the speed of his finger, slippery and perfect. The bond sent it all spinning back and forth between them as she wound tighter and tighter, his exquisite control of the Force reacting to match her need, filling her perfectly, increasing speed until she sobbed with release, the pressure melting away as Ren gasped along with her. 

Rey forgot everything but how to breath, albeit unevenly. Her brain felt short-circuited, clouded with bliss and warmth... yet humming with an undercurrent of the desperate need for more, growing sharper as it refracted, him to her and back. He was being a _gentleman_ , waiting for her to recover herself, barely touching her as they basked in her aftershocks together, and attempting to belay his own aching desire, cock still jutting into the cool air by her hip. Rey growled to realize it, and with another tug of power, she flipped them once more, as easily as breathing. He smiled at her, something equal parts fond and feral, until she settled her weight back on top of him, grinding herself down on his erection. His smile turned to a shudder of pure sensation as she leaned to capture his lips in a biting kiss.

“My turn,” she whispered, and with nothing but instinct and Force senses guiding her, she lifted herself up just right to sink down onto him, smooth and heady as a jump to lightspeed. Both of them cried out as she took him in to the hilt, bodies and minds connected to capacity, a jolt like an electric current arcing between them. His hands gripped her hips like he could hold her there forever. She was so warm, so full of life and lit up with desire for him, that Ren didn’t want to move. The universe could collapse around them, sucking all life and matter back into a chaos of heat and stardust, and he wouldn’t care, as long as their atoms were bound together, as their bodies were now.

Then Rey did move, and Ren remembered that he cared quite a lot. The slick heat of her took him in, deeper, over and over as she moved her hips, sparks literally trailing from her fingertips as they brushed his chest, little ticklish bolts of blue and white crackling with the intensity of her feelings. They lit her curves, darkened nipples and her lips swollen with kissing, the gleam of sweat on her brow, now knit in ecstacy. He drew her down again, _needing_ to kiss her, as every nerve of pleasure between them lit up. It was mere moments before she was tightening around him, the combined sensations sending him crashing over the edge just after her.

Collapsing on top of him, Rey hummed, enjoying both the glow that clung to them and the new feeling of his bare chest pressed against hers. His arms came up around her, holding her there as they caught their breath again, and that’s when the blare of the ship’s alarm sliced through the peaceful darkness of the compartment.

They both felt it a heartbeat later- the wicked darkness, glittering with malice, of Snoke’s presence nearby.

Their blissful moment shattered, they scrambled apart. Neither looked at the other as they threw on clothing, but a sense of dread echoed between them, the _what now?_ unanswered.  


\-------------------------------

 

Flipping through screen readouts at the freighter’s controls, Rey felt her blood run cold. Five First Order ships were upon them, one or more catching their craft in a tractor beam, gridlocking their methods of escape. There wasn’t even an emergency pod docked, a detail she had overlooked when they were running for their lives. At a loss, she turned to look at Ren, desperate for some last-ditch idea, some one-in-a-million shot they could at least attempt.

He shook his head, face pale and drawn.

“We have to try _something,_ ” Rey cried.

“It’s too late for that. They’ll have us in minutes.” He paused, almost shy, before crossing the few feet between them and wrapping his arms around her. She hugged him back, mind still clawing for a plan, unable to give up. He pulled away just far enough to look her in the eyes, somber but calm now, holding none of the despair, or the passion they’d shared earlier.

“May the Force be with us,” he whispered.

“Light and Dark,” she replied, a reminder and a prayer in one.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her then, full of longing and regret for lost time. It felt like a goodbye. Rey couldn’t accept it, the world suddenly flipped on its head, gone from tenderness to fear before she’d even really known what she had - what she might be losing.

Blinking away tears, she kissed him back with all she had, weaving her mind with his across their bond as if she could imprint him in herself any further. Too soon, they were jostled apart as the ship jerked to a halt, the bright artificial light of a starship hangar bay filling their viewports. In moments, the hatch chirped a warning, followed quickly by the hiss of atmosphere as it clunked open, stormtroopers pouring in. Rey bristled for the fight, fury and power rising in her throat like bile, but Ren soothed the instinct, a caress from the Light sending her calm, control. He didn’t take his eye from her face until the stormtroopers wrested him away, forcing him to turn and march between them. More of them were grabbing her, but Rey didn’t try to fight, much as she wished to.

The parade of boots across the polished hangar deck and the sounds of machinery were all that greeted the captives as they emerged, lights even brighter from above, making Rey squint. No general Hux or Captain Phasma was there to meet the pair, however, and Ren’s faint surprise rippled to her across their connection. She tried speaking to him, a collusion mind-to-mind, in the hopes they might still find a way out of this, but abruptly she felt the bond go numb, his shields thrown up against her for the first time in days. She tried not to feel it as a slight.

Probably he would need to protect himself as much as possible from Snoke, to hide his new affiliation as long as he could. She certainly couldn’t feel a thing from him now, so maybe he’d even succeed. Still, it was disconcerting to be cut off from him once more, after everything they’d shared. She felt unbalanced, senses duller.

Nearing the inner doors of the hangar, Rey’s unease swelled as she was hustled through a small corridor, while Kylo Ren was taken down a larger hallway, leading into the heart of the Star Destroyer. She tried once again to reach him, but there was nothing, merely the outline in the Force where his energy hummed, cold comfort as she was marched through several doors to be thrown into a dark holding cell, the door sliding shut with a dry click.

She had a bad feeling about this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would be so grateful for feedback, comments, or just what you crave more of! Your comments give me the will the live (and write!) Thanks again for your support and kindness, my darlings. 
> 
> xoxo


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